Gavin Williams comes up huge in Guardians' Game 5 win

CLEVELAND — Gavin Williams is making his case to be the pitcher Cleveland wants on the mound in every big moment. The Big Rig delivered another big strikeout game with 12 to help lead the Guardians to a 2-0 win against the Chicago White Sox in a winner-take-all Game 5 of the American League Divisional Series at Progressive Field on Saturday evening. Cleveland will head to Tampa to face the Rays in Game 1 of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series on Monday. "Just being able to celebrate with the guys is a dream come true," said Williams, who tied Charles Nagy's postseason record of 12 strikeouts set against Baltimore in Game 4 of the 1996 ALDS. "I'm just trying to do my job and give the team the best shot to win. I honestly was trying to save the bullpen a little bit, I know they've gone through it a little bit in the four previous games. That's the main thing, just giving the team the best shot to win." Williams and relievers Erik Sabrowski, Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith combined to set a postseason record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game with 21. They set the record with 19 in Game 3 on Wednesday. "Our pitchers are incredible," manager Stephen Vogt said. "All four of them tonight. We asked a ton of them this whole series. That was five games each for Hunter and Cade and I think Erik pitched in four. When you miss bats they can't get anything going. They just shut them down and that's a really, really good offense they have over there." Piling up strikeouts is nothing new for Cleveland's ace. Williams had 11 games with at least 10 strikeouts in the regular season, including 13 against Toronto on Sept. 1. He had a run of five straight starts with at least 10 strikeouts from July 9 until Aug. 2. In Game 2, Williams was nearly as dominant as he was Saturday, striking out 11 in five innings while allowing two runs, four hits and three walks. "It's hard to put thoughts together with what Gavin did in this series," Vogt said. "Ask him to do something he's never done and then ask him to again go do something he's never done, pitch two days after you've pitched in a game. That was big boy stuff today. That was, 'I got you guys, I'm going to give you my A-game and I'm going to give you as many pitches as I can.' That was so impressive." He made a relief appearance in Game 4, coming in during the ninth inning with a runner on first to preserve the 9-5 win. Williams threw 18 pitches and faced four batters, allowing one hit with one strikeout. Williams said that appearing in Game 4 had no impact on his performance Saturday. Vogt said Williams told him, "I want the ball, I'm ready to go," almost immediately after his relief appearance Thursday. "I feel like I have a slow heartbeat," Williams said. "Just take everything with a grain of salt. Take a deep breath when I have to and not let the moment get too big." Williams dominated Game 5, taking a no-hitter into the sixth before finishing with one hit, two walks, one hit batter in 5 2/3 innings. His first walk came in the second inning, but he rebounded to strike out the side. His strikeout to end the second inning started a string of seven in eight batters. He ran into some trouble in the sixth, leaving with the bases loaded and two outs for Munetaka Murakami. But Sabrowski struck out the White Sox slugger on five pitches to nullify the threat. "Our backend of the bullpen has been the lifeblood of this team since I've been here," Vogt said. "They have the highest leverage, they have the toughest outs to get. Erik came in and you just felt like you knew he was going to do what he did. He challenged a really big hitter in a moment where we had no room for error." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.