Previewing White Sox Division Series Matchup With Cleveland Guardians

After thoroughly dominating Houston Astros in the Wild Card series 2-0, the White Sox will be taking on the Cleveland Guardians in the Division Series. It just had to be them. In what feels like an epic showdown between the two division foes, the Sox-Guardians rivalry will go to new heights with their first ever postseason matchup. Sure, Cleveland might have won the division, but the Pale Hose won the season series 7-6. Seven of those 13 matchups were decided by one run, with the Guardians walking off three times and the Sox once. Let's just say, this could be an epic series. Let's preview this matchup.

Will The White Sox Pitching Match Up With Cleveland's?

It's no secret that the main key to the Guardians' success is their pitching and they have an edge over the Pale Hose, but it's much closer than one might think. The Cleveland rotation is clearly much better and deeper than the White Sox, especially considering that Tanner Bibee, Parker Messick, and Gavin Williams are all outstanding pitchers as well as Foster Griffin who had an awesome season (though has struggled since coming to the Guardians). Cleveland has a pretty good bullpen too with names like Colin Holderman, Hunter Gaddis, Joey Cantillo, and Matt Festa, plus an outstanding closer in Cade Smith. Even after losing the dominating Emmanuel Clase, the Guardians showed how good their pitching development is. However, while the public seems to think Cleveland has the better bullpen too, the Pale Hose's might actually be better. Once Erick Fedde moved to the bullpen and with both Hagan Smith and David Sandlin being able to go multiple innings, the White Sox relief corps got much deeper. It seems like they have more options if it indeed goes into a bullpen game as the Pale Hose relievers can go deeper. It looks more like the Sox have the advantage there. It will be interesting how each team's game plans will look considering each other's advantage.

The White Sox Have To Continue Their Hot Hitting

The one thing the Pale Hose have a clear advantage is the bats are much more productive. While the Guardians have been much more productive in the second half, the Sox are much better. However, the Pale Hose have to keep up their torrid hitting because Cleveland does have a good pitching staff. Fans will not want to see that version of the team where they seemingly could not drive in runs with runners in scoring position in what seemed like a three week span in having cold bats. Getting Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery going will help a lot too and if they do get hot, both will do a lot of damage and the Guardians' pitchers will struggle to get the Sox offense off the field.

Will Venable Must Continue What He Is Doing

Much of the criticism against Venable had been some of the in game decision making that he did in the regular season. And that criticism was reasonable, but after what Venable did in the Houston series, there is going to be a lot of optimism. It was hard to nail down the game plan the White Sox were doing against the Astros, but it went down perfectly and that's why the club advanced. Now Venable will have to do the same thing against Cleveland, but they did play each other 13 times, so it adds a whole other element in this postseason series.

Realistically, this is an even series and will be interesting how things play out. The Sox played better than the Guardians for most of the season, but Cleveland got hot at the right time and took advantage when the Pale Hose got cold bats. That being said, the White Sox might have a big edge here and for one reason: they've played more recently. The Guardians not having played in almost a week can make them be rusty no matter how much rest helps, but baseball is about timing and rhythm and the Sox have that right now. The White Sox have a great chance at moving on the Championship Series.