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For four games, pitching chaos helped the South Siders reign. Armed with only one starter in his circle of trust, White Sox manager Will Venable leaned on his band of mostly young, mostly hard-throwing relievers. Who, and for how long, was dictated by circumstance. It worked early, as Chicago swept through Houston in the Wild Card Series and jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the ALDS against the Guardians. Venable pressed all the right buttons — the staff allowed just nine runs across those first four games — and deserves a ton of credit for getting a dozen pitchers to embrace such a novel strategy on the fly.

All along, we’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. How long can the White Sox get away with throwing Grant Taylor multiple frames every outing? Will Hagen Smith finally pay for walking a batter per inning? What happens if Chicago needs an actual starter to eat a couple of innings?

The first cracks in the dam appeared Wednesday, when Chicago walked 10 and the Guardians exploded for nine runs. Water trickled through in the early innings of Thursday’s Game 4, too, and then burst through all at once as Cleveland, again facing elimination, defeated the White Sox, 9-5, to force a do-or-die Game 5 on Saturday.