Cleveland Guardians at Chicago White Sox: Final Score & Recap

The Cleveland Guardians rolled past the Chicago White Sox 12-3 at Camelback Ranch on March 5, 2026, a game that was effectively decided in the first inning and confirmed in the seventh. The DiamondIQ model entered with the White Sox holding a 54% pre-game win probability as the home side, but that edge evaporated almost immediately. Cleveland plated four runs in the top of the first and never trailed, finishing with 16 hits against a Chicago staff that could not contain the damage. The model's estimate of a White Sox victory fell to 0% by the final out.

The decisive swing in win probability came in the bottom of the first, when Miguel Vargas grounded into a double play off Tanner Bibee, costing Chicago 10.5 percentage points of win probability at a moment when the game was still theoretically competitive. Lenyn Sosa's strikeout in the bottom of the second, also against Bibee, removed another 10.4 points. On the Cleveland side, Angel Martinez contributed the top positive swing among position players with a groundout off Sean Burke in the top of the second that added 8.6 points of win probability in context, while Juan Brito's pop out in the top of the first added 8.5 points. Cleveland then blew the game open with seven runs in the seventh, capped by Angel Genao's double off Jedixson Paez that added 3.6 points to an already commanding lead.

Tanner Bibee was the performance anchor by a wide margin, generating 31.4 percentage points of win probability for Cleveland on the mound. Erick Fedde added 5.2 points and Cade Smith contributed 4.2 more as the Guardians' pitching staff held Chicago to six hits and three runs across nine innings. Among position players, Angel Martinez led all batters with a combined WPA of plus-10.3% and a RE24 of plus-0.9, while Angel Genao posted a RE24 of plus-0.8 to complement his late-game double. The model leaned toward the White Sox before first pitch; the Guardians made that projection irrelevant within three innings.