{"id":916285,"date":"2026-10-04T22:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916285\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T22:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:16:26","slug":"chicago-white-sox-stick-with-bullpen-plan-anthony-kay-to-open-alds-game-2-vs-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916285\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox stick with bullpen plan; Anthony Kay to open ALDS Game 2 vs. Guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Will Venable said before the start of the American League Division Series that it was possible the Chicago White Sox<\/a> could use bullpen games during the first three contests against the Cleveland Guardians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Venable isn\u2019t deviating from that plan, so far.<\/p>\n

Anthony Kay<\/a> will be the opener for Game 2 on Monday at Progressive Field. It will be the 33rd time this season the White Sox have used an opener, including the third in the postseason.<\/p>\n

Sean Burke<\/a> is expected to throw most of the innings, but Venable said he will have many options available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it\u2019s set up here with the two off days in between these first three games gives us a chance to go ahead,\u201d Venable said.<\/p>\n

Kay made 33 appearances during the regular season, including 31 starts, and went 10-9 with a 4.44 ERA. He was the first White Sox left hander to earn double-digit wins in a season since Carlos Rod\u00f3n with 13 in 2021. Kay got the win on Wednesday in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series with two-thirds of a scoreless inning.<\/p>\n

Kay was also among five Chicago pitchers in Saturday\u2019s 3-0 victory as they allowed only three hits and struck out 12.. He went 1 1\/3 innings and allowed one hit and one walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been interesting watching him in a different type of role, shorten down. You\u2019ve seen the velo tick up. I think the one thing is he just hasn\u2019t been afforded kind of that length to get comfortable,\u201d Venable said. \u201cHe\u2019s made some really big pitches, got us out of some really tough spots. We just haven\u2019t really seen us go beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s bullpen has a 4.57 ERA with its openers, but Hagen Smith<\/a> has not allowed an earned run in 5 2\/3 innings in the postseason. The left-hander worked three scoreless innings in Game 1 of the first round against Houston and then 2 2\/3 shutout innings on Saturday against the Guardians.<\/p>\n

Burke got the start on Wednesday in Houston. The right-hander, who went 11-7 with a 3.34 ERA in the regular season, allowed three runs on four hits and struck out eight in four innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just seeing the efforts and everybody kind of doing their own individual role just makes you want to take the ball and just do anything you can to kind of help the team just put up zeros, and passing that baton to the next guy,\u201d Burke said. \u201cAnd the way we\u2019re doing this is really just like a team effort from the pitching side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavin Williams<\/a> will get the call for Cleveland. The right-hander went 14-8 with a 3.76 ERA and was second in the major leagues with 248 strikeouts. He held opposing hitters to a .213 batting average, tied for seventh best in the majors.<\/p>\n

Williams isn\u2019t stressing about the start despite the Guardians needing a win to avoid an 0-2 deficit going to Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another game. Just going to go out there and try and do what I know I can do and execute and try to help the team win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here <\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Will Venable said before the start of the American League Division Series that it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-916285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}