Pitching in the cold became an October problem for Cleveland the moment Munetaka Murakami turned on Parker Messick’s first-pitch sinker Saturday afternoon.
The thermometer read 63 degrees at Progressive Field. Murakami did not care. His swing sent the ball 440 feet at 112.2 mph, landing deep in the seats and giving Chicago the two runs it needed in a 3-0 Game 1 win. The White Sox managed only six hits, but Cleveland produced even less: three hits, no runs and two bases-loaded chances wasted.
Now the Guardians enter Game 2 in something close to must-win territory, with Gavin Williams facing a Chicago lineup built to punish one bad location. That changes the weather conversation.
October air can affect carry. Cold can make comfort and feel harder to maintain. But pitching in the cold does not come down to who looks toughest with short sleeves and visible breath. It comes down to which staff keeps executing when the margins get thinner, and Game 1 already supplied the evidence.
Cold air matters, just not enough to save a bad pitch
Cleveland in October usually means daytime temperatures in the low 60s and nights that can fall into the 40s. National Weather Service climate normals put the city’s average October high at 63.7 degrees and its average low at 46.5.
That matters for the baseball. University of Illinois physicist Alan Nathan has found that warmer air helps long fly balls carry farther. His model estimates roughly 0.33 additional feet of distance for each one-degree rise in temperature on a typical home-run ball.
Put more simply, a 400-foot drive struck on an 80-degree July night might lose roughly six feet when the temperature falls into the low 60s. For hitters, that means the warning-track fly ball becomes a little less forgiving.
Murakami showed the other side of the equation.
Messick left a sinker inside and slightly elevated in the fourth inning. Murakami crushed it so completely that six feet would have meant nothing. His homer cleared the uncertainty along with the wall.
That is the useful way to think about pitching in the cold. Weather can change borderline contact, but it cannot protect a pitcher who gives a major-league slugger exactly what he wants. Cleveland has to live on the right side of that distinction Monday.
Gavin Williams can take the weather out of the game
The Guardians could not ask for a better profile in Game 2.
Williams finished 2026 with a 3.76 ERA and 248 strikeouts across 184 1/3 innings. Only Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski finished with more strikeouts in the majors. Williams also reached double-digit strikeouts 11 times, more than any other MLB starter.
Those swings and misses matter more in October. A strikeout removes the wind and the outfield dimensions from the play. Nobody has to judge a slicing fly ball or chase a hard grounder on cold grass. Williams can reduce pitching in the cold to the simplest version of the sport: beat the hitter before contact becomes part of the equation.
His biggest vulnerability makes the matchup more uncomfortable. More than half of the earned runs Williams allowed this season came on home runs, according to MLB.com. Chicago, meanwhile, finished fifth in the majors in homers.
And Murakami is hardly the only threat.
Miguel Vargas hit 33 home runs with an .837 OPS during the regular season. Murakami finished with 35 homers, while Colson Montgomery added 31. Three different hitters can turn a five-inch location mistake into a two-run problem.
That leaves Williams with a narrow assignment: attack without becoming predictable.
Working deep counts invites trouble because every extra pitch gives Chicago another look at his fastball shape and breaking-ball release. Williams needs early strikes, but not middle-middle strikes. He needs aggression without generosity. In the cold, repeating the delivery matters much more than trying to manufacture another mile per hour.
Game 1 showed Cleveland exactly where the danger lives
There is no evidence that Parker Messick lost his grip because of the temperature Saturday, and pretending otherwise would turn weather into an excuse. What actually happened tells a better story.
Messick faced Vargas to open the fourth and allowed a single. Murakami stepped in next and attacked the first pitch. The sinker leaked into a hittable spot, and one violent swing changed the game.
That sequence captures the real threat of pitching in the cold. The conditions may narrow a pitcher’s margin, but the hitter still decides whether a miss becomes harmless contact or damage. Messick did not get beaten by Cleveland weather. He got beaten by Murakami.
Williams faces the same line between precision and punishment. His fastball gives him more margin than most pitchers, and the strikeout numbers prove that. Chicago still has enough power to make one elevated heater or one hanging breaking ball feel much larger than the mistake itself.
The Guardians also cannot count on scoring enough to erase one. They put runners everywhere in Game 1 and brought nobody home, loading the bases in both the third and fourth innings yet finishing with only three hits. Chicago’s pitchers kept turning uncomfortable situations into zeros.
In a low-scoring October game, every pitching mistake gets louder because the offense may never provide enough room to absorb it.
Chicago has turned pitching into a relay race
The most interesting pitching adjustment in this series belongs to the White Sox.
Chicago does not need one starter to carry seven innings. Manager Will Venable has treated his staff like a relay team, asking each pitcher to attack a specific section of Cleveland’s order before handing the game to someone with a different look.
Game 1 showed how disruptive that can become.
Left-hander Hagen Smith started and worked 2 2/3 scoreless innings. When three straight walks loaded the bases in the third, Bryan Hudson entered and escaped. Chicago kept moving from arm to arm until Grant Taylor took over for the final four innings.
Taylor struck out six and allowed no runs, earning an old-school four-inning save. Chicago’s closer actually recorded more outs than its starter, an unusual box-score detail that captured Venable’s entire postseason approach.
Game 2 will use the same philosophy with a different first leg. Rather than ask one starter to establish the afternoon, Venable will again manipulate the order from the opening pitch, this time using Anthony Kay to shape the matchups before Sean Burke takes over the bulk of the work.
Anthony Kay gets the first matchup, Sean Burke gets the bulk
Kay’s assignment starts at the top of Cleveland’s lineup.
The left-hander gives Chicago a favorable opening look against Steven Kwan and Chase DeLauter while also forcing switch-hitting JosĂ© RamĂrez to adjust immediately. Once that pocket clears, Burke can enter against a lineup that has already changed its timing and approach.
That is what makes Chicago’s relay system more dangerous than the pitchers’ ERAs alone suggest.
Burke already understands the role. He pitched behind an opener five times during the regular season and posted a 3.34 ERA with 185 strikeouts in 172 1/3 innings. Against Cleveland specifically, he went 2-0 with a 1.04 ERA across three appearances this year.
Chicago wants Guardians hitters adjusting all afternoon. Kay changes the look at the top. Burke follows with a different angle and repertoire. Later, another reliever can force another reset.
Pitching in the cold also becomes easier when nobody needs to conserve energy for 100 pitches. Each arm can attack its assignment at near-maximum intensity. The risk arrives at the handoffs, because one reliever without command can wreck the whole relay before the next matchup ever matters.
The cold-weather problem is really a command problem
Fans and broadcasters often treat cold-weather baseball as a simple toughness test. Pitchers experience something more technical.
The ball has not changed size. The mound still sits 60 feet, six inches away. Yet the pitcher must repeat an incredibly precise release while his body cools between innings and the game slows around pitching changes, reviews and long offensive innings.
That puts even more value on rhythm.
Williams does not need to prove he can tolerate Cleveland in October. He has pitched there all season. His challenge is keeping his mechanics synced when a long inning stretches his time on the bench or Chicago forces him through an eight-pitch at-bat.
Burke faces a different version of the same problem. Entering after Kay means he must arrive ready immediately rather than spending the first inning settling into a start.
Those details can make pitching in the cold feel different without turning the weather into mythology. Cleveland has seen much harsher postseason conditions before. Game 2 of the 2016 World Series began at 43 degrees at Progressive Field, and Chicago won that night, too.
The temperature became part of the memory. The pitches still decided the game.
Cleveland cannot let the weather become the story
The Guardians enter Game 2 with a simple problem and several complicated ways to solve it.
They need Williams to control Chicago’s power. Their hitters must solve a White Sox staff that refuses to follow conventional postseason pitching patterns. Most of all, Cleveland needs to turn baserunners into runs before the series moves to Chicago.
Pitching in the cold sits underneath all of it. A deep fly might lose a few feet, and a pitcher might need longer to find the feel of a breaking ball. As daylight disappears over Progressive Field, comfort becomes harder to maintain.
None of those details will matter as much as the next mistake over the plate.
Murakami made that clear Saturday. Cleveland held Chicago to six hits and still watched one swing dictate the afternoon. The White Sox survived their own command trouble because Hudson and Taylor made pitches when runners reached scoring position.
That is the October equation Cleveland faces now. Williams owns the kind of swing-and-miss arsenal that can make weather irrelevant. Chicago owns enough power to punish him if his command wanders. Kay and Burke will try to keep the Guardians uncomfortable before another wave of relievers arrives.
By the late innings, the temperature may have dropped. Hands may feel colder and the baseball may carry a little less, but the team that notices those things least will probably be the team in control.
That’s the beauty and the cruelty of October baseball on the lakefront. Pitching in the cold can change the margins, but it cannot change the demand: Can you still make the pitch when the whole season needs it?
READ ALSO: Inside the Dodgers’ pitching calculus: How workload and strategy will decide the NLDS
FAQs
Does cold weather make a baseball travel less far?
Yes. Cooler air can take several feet off a deep fly ball, but hard contact can still overpower the conditions.
Who is pitching for the Guardians in Game 2?
Gavin Williams gets the assignment. He finished the regular season with a 3.76 ERA and 248 strikeouts across 184 1/3 innings.
How are the White Sox using their pitchers against Cleveland?
Chicago uses a relay-style plan. Anthony Kay opens Game 2 before Sean Burke takes over the bulk innings.
How cold does Cleveland usually get in October?
Cleveland’s normal October high is 63.7 degrees, while the normal low falls to 46.5 degrees.
What happened in Game 1 between the White Sox and Guardians?
Munetaka Murakami hit a 440-foot two-run homer, and Chicago held Cleveland to three hits in a 3-0 White Sox win.
