José Ramírez homers as the Guardians beat the White Sox 9-5 to force a decisive Game 5 in ALDS

CHICAGO (AP) — Facing elimination for the second consecutive day, José Ramírez and the Cleveland Guardians responded once again.

“What this team is doing is only what we know how to do,” the All-Star third baseman said.

Ramírez homered and drove in three runs, and Cleveland beat the Chicago White Sox 9-5 on Thursday night to send their AL Division Series to a winner-take-all Game 5.

Patrick Bailey also went deep and Game 2 starter Gavin Williams came out of the bullpen to get the last three outs as the Guardians won in Chicago for the second straight day after beginning their postseason with two losses at home. Jo Adell hit a two-run single in a six-run sixth inning for the AL Central champions.

“This team has answered all year,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “We talk about it — we punch back.”

Cleveland is looking to become the first club to come back from a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-five playoff series since the 2017 New York Yankees accomplished the feat against, well, Cleveland. Teams with a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five postseason series have gone on to win 83 of 93 times.

Game 5 is back in Cleveland on Saturday night, and the winner will open the American League Championship Series at Tampa Bay next Monday.

The road team has won all four games in the only one of the four Division Series to go the distance this year.

“As we’ve battled back and forth with these guys, obviously fitting that it’s going to come down to this,” White Sox manager Will Venable said.

Chicago's bullpen — one of its biggest strengths in a surprising season — is suddenly looking very tired. Grant Taylor was hit hard after pitching 5 1/3 scoreless innings over the first two games of the series, allowing four runs and four hits without retiring any of the six batters he faced during Cleveland's rally in the sixth.

“Body felt good, stuff felt good, just didn’t execute,” Taylor said.

Miguel Vargas homered for the White Sox, who flopped in their second straight bid to clinch a postseason series at home for the first time since the 1906 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Sam Antonacci drove in two runs off the bench.

All-Star closer Cade Smith worked a scoreless eighth for the Guardians but gave up Vargas' first postseason homer and a walk to start the ninth. He was replaced by Williams, who was making his first career relief appearance and could still start Game 5 as well.

The right-hander needed 18 pitches to get three outs after throwing 98 pitches on Monday. He was the seventh Guardians reliever as the teams combined to use 15 pitchers in a game that took 3 hours, 39 minutes.

Williams went 14-8 this season and led the AL with 248 strikeouts.

“We’ve still got one more to win at home,” Bailey said. “Again, this was an awesome atmosphere to play in. We can’t wait to get back to Cleveland for Game 5.”

Cleveland trailed 2-0 before rallying in the fifth. Bailey led off with a pinch-hit homer, and Steven Kwan chased Erick Fedde with a one-out single.

Jordan Hicks came in and Ramírez drove a 99.9 mph fastball to right-center for just his second homer since Sept. 1, a span of 26 games. The seven-time All-Star had surgery after he broke a bone in his left hand on a swing June 13.

“It was José Ramírez being José Ramírez in the playoffs,” Vogt said.

It was Ramírez's first postseason homer since 2024 and No. 5 overall. He also starred in Game 3, finishing with two hits and two RBIs in Cleveland's 9-3 victory.

“It was really special,” Ramírez said through a translator. “It was great energy out there, and very special to share this with the guys.”

Chicago responded with two runs in the bottom half, sending a charge through the crowd of 39,920. Antonacci was hit by a pitch from Tim Herrin with the bases loaded, and Brenton Doyle made it 4-3 with a sacrifice fly. The White Sox had the bases loaded with two down, but rookie Braden Montgomery struck out swinging against winning pitcher Erik Sabrowski.

Antonacci has been plunked 33 times this year, including a franchise-record 29 in the regular season. The rookie became the first player in postseason history to be hit by a pitch with the bases loaded multiple times in a career, after he was also plunked in the same situation in Game 3.

Losing pitcher Anthony Kay started the sixth for Chicago, but the left-hander was replaced by Taylor after Travis Bazzana's RBI double tied it at 4. Bailey greeted Taylor with a run-scoring single, and Cleveland started to pull away.

Walks by Brayan Rocchio and Kwan loaded the bases for Ramírez, who made it 6-4 with an infield single. Chase DeLauter added another run-scoring single before Adell capped the outburst with a liner to right that drove in Kwan and Ramírez.

“I feel like we’ve been impacting the baseball a lot better the last two games,” Bailey said. “Obviously, the more you see a certain guy, kind of not necessarily more comfortable, but you get to see (those) kind of shapes more and more. Definitely helps.”

Adell hit a three-run triple during Cleveland's Game 3 victory. He has four hits, three walks and six RBIs in the series.

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Chicago White Sox players watch from the dugout during the ninth inning in Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)

Chicago White Sox's Miguel Vargas watches his solo home run during the ninth inning in Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Melissa Tamez)

Cleveland Guardians relief pitcher Gavin Williams delivers during the ninth inning in Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Huh)

Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez celebrates after hitting a 2-run home run during the fifth inning in Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Melissa Tamez)

Cleveland Guardians' Jose Ramirez hits a 2-run home run during the fifth inning in Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Melissa Tamez)

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 9, 2026--

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This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261008680762/en/

Key features of the KIOXIA LD4 Series include:

Notes:

*1 These samples are for functional check purposes only and the specifications of the samples may differ in mass production.

*2 Compliant with the PCIe Ⓡ 5.0 specification, with speed up to 16 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) x4

*Read and write speed may vary depending on various factors such as host devices, software (drivers, OS etc.), and read/write conditions.

*Definition of capacity: Kioxia Corporation defines a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.

NVMe is a registered or unregistered mark of NVM Express, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

OCP and OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT marks are owned by and used with the permission of the Open Compute Project Foundation.

PCI Express and PCIe are registered trademarks of PCI-SIG.

Other company names, product names and service names may be trademarks of third-party companies.

About Kioxia

Kioxia is a world leader in memory solutions, dedicated to the development, production and sale of flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs). In April 2017, its predecessor Toshiba Memory was spun off from Toshiba Corporation, the company that invented NAND flash memory in 1987. Kioxia is committed to uplifting the world with “memory” by offering products, services and systems that create choice for customers and memory-based value for society. Kioxia's innovative 3D flash memory technology, BiCS FLASH™, is shaping the future of storage in high-density applications, including advanced smartphones, PCs, automotive systems, data centers and generative AI systems.

*Information in this document, including product prices and specifications, content of services and contact information, is correct on the date of the announcement but is subject to change without prior notice.

KIOXIA LD4 Series Data Center SSD