Gavin Williams emerges as postseason star for Guardians

When the Guardians win a tight and low-scoring game, it often gets described as “Guardsball” by announcers and others.

Part of the equation for the Guardians involves pitching, and they headed into this year’s tournament with a 3.77 ERA, which ranked eighth in the majors during the 162-game marathon. The area where Cleveland ranked even higher was 1,530 strikeouts, giving them the third-most behind the Phillies and Brewers.

A key cause of Cleveland’s pitching becoming a top-three strikeout team in a full season for the first time since 2017 was Gavin Williams, who did so well at East Carolina he went from a 30th-round pick by the Rays in 2017 to Cleveland’s first-round selection four years later.

Williams moves Guardians halfway to World Series trip

Williams’ latest outing was another low-scoring game for the Guardians, who did not take the lead in Game 3 on Oct. 15 until he threw his final pitch.

He wound up striking out nine and allowed two runs and two hits in five innings and it occurred after he struck out 12 and allowed one hit in 5 2/3 innings in a 2-0 win in Game 5 of the ALDS against the White Sox.

Unlike Cam Schlittler, Williams is not necessarily doing this with a high-octane fastball. While his 18 four-seam fastballs averaged 97.6 mph, most of the right-hander’s success occurred with 29 sweepers.

It was slightly different from his 94-pitch outing to help eliminate the White Sox. In the clincher for Cleveland’s eighth ALCS trip, Willams relied on his curveball and sweeper. His 30 curveballs averaged 82.7 and his 29 sweepers averaged 88.

Earlier in the series, Williams took a different approach by relying on his four-seam fastball, which resembled a Schlittler outing when he averaged 99.5 on 38 four-seam fastballs while making his sweeper and curveball secondary options.

Through three postseason starts and a season-saving relief appearance in Game 4 against the White Sox, Williams has a 2.16 ERA. His 33 strikeouts are the most among any pitcher by a wide margin as Chris Sale finished with 19 strikeouts before the Braves were eliminated and three behind Orel Hershiser (1995) and Corey Kluber (2016) for the most in Cleveland postseason history with those performances occurring in World Series seasons.

Additionally Williams is holding hitters to a .140 average, the second-lowest mark among any pitcher still in the postseason behind teammate Cade Smith holding hitters to a .069 mark.