The Chicago White Sox rallied to beat the Cleveland Guardians in the latest stop on their fairytale Major League Baseball playoff run on Monday as the New York Yankees edged closer to elimination after a defeat to Tampa Bay.
Munetaka Murakami, Braden Montgomery and Chase Meidroth drove in the winning runs for Chicago in a 4-3 victory at Cleveland's Progressive Field that leaves the White Sox with a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.
The White Sox -- carrying the hopes of lifetime fan Pope Leo XIV -- are aiming to continue one of the most remarkable turnaround seasons in baseball.
After three straight seasons with 100 or more defeats the White Sox finished the regular season with an 84-78 record, snagging the sixth seed in the American League.
In their first playoff series since 2021 they ousted the Houston Astros in two games in the Wild Card round.
They now need only one more win to return to the AL Championship Series for the first time since their World Series-winning campaign in 2005.
White Sox manager Will Venable saluted his team's character after climbing out of an early 2-0 hole to claim victory.
"It's the same stuff we have seen all year from this group," Venable said.
"There is no stopping. There is just this mentality that we're going to go out and going to play all nine innings, all 27 outs, whatever happens happens.
"There's no let down or no discouragement from our group. They just continue to fight and battle."
White Sox reliever Sean Burke bottled up the Cleveland offense, giving up just one hit and one run in 5 1/3 innings before being replaced by closer Grant Taylor with two outs in the eighth inning.
A triple from Cleveland's Jo Adell made it a one-run game heading to the ninth, but Taylor mopped up the final three outs to seal victory.
Cleveland skipper Stephen Vogt admitted his team had left themselves a daunting task as the series moves to Chicago for games three and four.
"I am not going to sugarcoat it. We've backed ourselves into a corner," Vogt said. "If there's anything I know about this group of guys is that we love challenges like this. We are going to embrace it."
- Error-prone Yankees stumble -
The winner of Chicago and Cleveland's series will face either the Yankees or Tampa Bay Rays for a place in the World Series.
The Rays look the likeliest to advance to that showdown after punishing a litany of fielding errors against the Yankees on Monday to claim a 5-2 victory and a 2-0 series lead.
The Yankees committed three errors in the first inning alone -- tying the record for the most in a postseason opening inning -- to cough up an early unearned run against ace Cam Schlittler.
A solo shot from Ben Rice in the fourth tied it at 1-1, but the Yankees failed to cash in after loading the bases in the fifth inning.
The Rays duly made them pay for that by taking advantage of another fielding error to compile a four-run fifth that made it 5-1, including a two-run single from Richie Palacios.
Rice gave the Yankees hope with another solo shot in the eighth, but Rays star closer Bryan Baker came out for the ninth and needed just nine pitches to bag the final three outs and clinch victory.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said his team's calamitous defensive display was "not good enough."
"Obviously a really rough night to say the least for us," Boone said. "We've got to get over it. We've responded all year to difficult times and we've got to do that again.
"Tonight was just not good enough for us, and certainly not good enough to beat that ball club."
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