Paul Sullivan: Can White Sox keep succeeding in postseason without conventional rotation?

CLEVELAND — If you’re a baseball fan of a certain age, you’ve probably spent most of your life knowing some certainties about a pitching staff.

The five best guys (or four if you’re really old) are the starters who will try to get you through the bulk of the game. The best reliever is the closer, who pitches the last inning or possibly part of the eighth if he’s dominant enough. The next-best relievers — preferably one left-hander and one right-hander — are the setup men, the potential bridges from starter to closer.

And the pitcher who is least effective on the staff is the mop-up man, whose main function is keeping the better relievers from being overused.

For years managers used that basic blueprint, or something close to it, to get through the regular season. Then when the playoffs arrived, the best three or four starters went longer because the season was almost over and they could empty their bullets in the biggest games.

But baseball has changed, for better or worse, and now anything goes. Boston Red Sox ace Sonny Gray was removed in the fifth inning of a do-or-die wild-card game Wednesday, and Gray and his teammates grumbled about how the game got to this point.

Which brings us to the 2026 Chicago White Sox, who are trying to win with a “no-rotation” rotation.

Will Venable, the second-year White Sox manager, announced Friday that left-handed reliever Hagen Smith would start Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, serving as the opener Saturday, as he did in pitching three scoreless innings in Game 1 of the wild-card win in Houston.

It’s no surprise. The Sox have used openers a league-leading 32 times this season, including Smith’s outing Tuesday. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But does the no-rotation rotation have its limits, or can Venable’s Sox keep succeeding in the postseason with a bullpen-first strategy?

Venable acknowledged Sean Burke could start Game 2 on Monday, as he did in a four-inning start in Game 2 against the Astros, in which starters Anthony Kay and Erick Fedde both pitched in relief. But other than Burke, it might be a guessing game from here on out.

Can Smith come back to start Game 3 at home Wednesday, giving him three starts in their first five playoff games? Who knows what’s up Venable’s sleeve?

“I think the way it’s set up with these off days, we’re going to leverage the arms that we want to leverage when we want to use them throughout these first couple,” Venable said. “And if that means that one of the guys who we’ve been giving starts to throughout the season takes a bulk role in that, there’s certainly potential for that. But I think you can expect us to mix and match and use our best arms in the most optimal way.”

That suggests Smith and Grant Taylor can be the designated bookends of multiple games, with Jordan Hicks, David Sandlin and Sean Newcomb in the middle and Kay, Fedde and Davis Martin as the wild cards.

It’s almost the polar-opposite approach that then-manager Ozzie Guillén employed in the 2005 postseason, when José Contreras, Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia and Jon Garland combined for a 2.84 ERA in 12 starts, leading the Sox on an 11-1 run to their World Series title.

In the five-game win over the Anaheim Angels in the AL Championship Series, the four starters had four straight complete games and combined for 44 1/3 of the 45 total innings, with Neal Cotts contributing the other two outs in the ninth inning of the Game 1 loss. The rest of the bullpen had a nice seat to watch the starters dealing.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever see that again,” Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski said afterward. “Managers just don’t do that anymore. They don’t have confidence to let guys go 120 pitches and throw nine innings.”

In the World Series, advance scout Bryan Little and his crew gave Guillén and pitching coach Don Cooper a near-perfect report on strengths and weaknesses of the Astros hitters. Contreras and Buerhle both went seven innings in the first two wins at Sox Park, and Garland went seven in Game 3 in Houston before the Astros tied it off Dustin Hermanson in the eighth.

Guillén was forced to use his well-rested bullpen when the game went 14 innings but also used Orlando “El Duque” Hernández and Buehrle. After Geoff Blum’s go-ahead home run in the 14th, Buehrle notched the infamous “buzzed save” by getting the final out after having a few beers in the clubhouse. “No more than three … I swear,” he later said.

Buehrle wound up on a Wheaties box, but he didn’t become a legend for his cereal-eating habits.

Game 4 was as old-school as it gets, with Garcia going seven shutout innings, Cliff Politte and Cotts getting the Sox through the eighth and Bobby Jenks closing out a 1-0 win to start the parade plans.

“That type of game is like the ones I watched for 162 games during the regular season,” Guillén said in the celebratory clubhouse.

Venable’s approach in the postseason also mirrors what he has done for much of the season.

General manager Chris Getz knew he didn’t have a dominant rotation in spring training, and opening-day starter Shane Smith was quickly dispatched to Triple-A Charlotte after three starts. Martin, Burke, Kay and Fedde have been the mainstays, though Fedde, who signed at the start of spring training, had only 15 starts in his 33 games.

Taylor has evolved into the de facto closer but can go three innings if needed. He also was used as an opener in April. Seranthony Domínguez led the team 12 saves, even after being dispatched at the trade deadline.

Openers aren’t a new concept. “Bullpenning” has been around for the last decade. Cubs manager Craig Counsell also used openers in last year’s postseason.

But is it possible no team has been as unconventional as the ’26 Sox in this particular run?

“It’s possible,” Getz said during the wild-card celebration. “We weren’t trying to re-create the wheel. We were trying to optimize the group that we had. So much of (baseball) has relied on starting pitching. We would’ve liked to do that. But if we were trying to win games, we had to lean on the strength of the club, and we’ve done that.”

The Sox’s strategy has been criticized, especially when an opener puts the bulk pitcher in a hole. Guillén himself has said on the Chicago Sports Network he’s not a fan of openers.

But if the Sox go all the way without a true rotation, the players may never have to buy a meal or drink in Chicago again. Or at least that’s the adage.

“More often than not I’ll just roll in and buy a drink or buy my dinner,” Blum told me last week in Houston. “But every so often, if there is a hard-core Sox fan in the bar or in the restaurant, there will be a free drink that will show up once in a while.”

“It still carries a little bit of weight,” Blum said. “We’re not quite the ’85 Bears, but the ’05 Sox do OK.”