CLEVELAND -- The swings and misses kept coming for the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night -- one after the other, after the other.
It was part of a record-setting night for the Guardians' pitching staff, led by starter Gavin Williams, who fanned 12 in his 5⅔ innings in Cleveland's series-clinching 2-0 win in the decisive Game 5 of the ALDS.
The bullpen picked up where Williams left off, striking out nine more batters, pushing the Guardians' total to 21, an MLB record for any nine-inning game, regular season or postseason.
"Almost like nothing I've ever seen before," second baseman Travis Bazzana said. "Every pitch in the zone was a whiff. I couldn't believe it."
Neither could the White Sox, who struck out three times in four different innings, including in the ninth to set the record. The dominant pitching performance helped cap a dramatic series comeback for the Guardians, who are just the 11th team in 94 tries to win a best-of-five series after losing the first two games.
Cleveland will face the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALCS, with Game 1 on Monday.
"It's about resilience," Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said during the champagne celebration after the win. "This group has demonstrated this time and time again."
No one showed more resiliency over the past few days than Williams and third baseman Jose Ramirez. Williams, pitching on a day's rest Saturday, showed increased velocity during his Game 5 outing and allowed just one hit.
Ramirez, who came up big this series after enduring an injury-plagued regular season, accounted for the only runs of Game 5. He took White Sox starter Sean Burke deep in the bottom of the fourth after connecting on a curveball just 0.89 feet from the ground. It was the lowest ball hit for a home run in the postseason since tracking began in 2008, and it added to Ramirez's growing Hall of Fame legacy in Cleveland.
"We've faced him a couple of times," Ramirez, speaking through the team interpreter, said of Burke. "So we know he has a really good curveball. So in that AB, I was looking for a curveball for strike."
Except it was far from a strike. It was at Ramirez's feet, and it came after four consecutive pitches at his eyes.
"I asked him how he hit that home run," Antonetti said with a laugh. "He said, 'It was a home run pitch. I was looking for it.'"
Ramirez delivered exactly when the Guardians needed him most. After beginning the ALDS 0-for-6, Ramirez went 5-for-12 with two home runs over the past three games, carrying the team to victory.
"Build the f---ing statue," reliever Erik Sabrowski screamed of Ramirez's performance.
Of the Guardians pitchers' 21 strikeouts, Sabrowski got the biggest one. He was called upon to protect a 2-0 lead against White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the sixth. He struck him out on five pitches.
"I think I threw the plan out the window and said f--- it," Sabrowski said. "I'm going to throw you fastballs."
It was one of four strikeouts for Murakami, who whiffed 11 times in the series. So did catcher Kyle Teel, who struck out twice Saturday. Andrew Benintendi also had four strikeouts Saturday, and Chase Meidroth had three.
Williams set the tone for the Guardians' pitchers after declaring he was ready to start Game 5 just two days after he recorded the last three outs of Game 4.
"I did some stuff in the training room, got some food and just walked by [manager Stephen Vogt] and said, 'I'm good to go,'" he said.
Williams' adrenaline must have been pumping pretty hard as his fastball averaged 99 mph in Game 5, up a couple of ticks from his regular-season average. He was throwing heat -- most of it in the zone.
"I feel like I always imagined myself doing this," Williams said. "The other day [Game 4] was a bullpen day, as everybody knew."
Williams is the third pitcher in MLB history with 12 or more strikeouts and one or fewer hits allowed in a postseason game and the first to do it in a winner-take-all contest. But Cleveland pitchers didn't just set records on Saturday; they did it for the entire week. They struck out 75 hitters, a record for a five-game series.
"I thought it was less about chase and more about being attacked in the zone and swing-and-miss in the zone," White Sox manager Will Venable said. "Just didn't have what it would have took to move some balls forward."
The Guardians partied hard in their clubhouse after the game, even mimicking the White Sox's pregame dugout dance routine while sipping on beer and champagne. They'll have to recover quickly as Game 1 of the ALCS looms against the AL's top seed.
Cleveland's confidence, though, is sky-high right now.
"I think the key was the mindset," Ramirez said. "As a group, we had a clear mindset that we knew we could come back."