Two years ago the Chicago White Sox lost 121 games, the most by any team in the modern era. On Thursday afternoon in Kansas City they beat the Royals 9-1 and clinched a place in the playoffs — the first club in major-league history to get there after losing 100 or more games in each of the two seasons before.
The White Sox had in fact done it three years running, from 2023 through 2025. It is their first postseason since 2021.
9-1 in Kansas City
Catcher Kyle Teel drove a solo home run 424 feet to right-center in the fourth and reached base five times. David Sandlin worked six strong innings. Miguel Vargas and Tristan Peters added run-scoring singles, and the Royals helped: starter Randy Dobnak gave up six runs and committed two errors inside a four-batter stretch that produced three runs in the first and three more in the second.
The win put Chicago at 82-77. The berth is a wild card, but the AL Central is not settled — the White Sox are a game behind Cleveland with three left to play, against Colorado.
Manager Will Venable took over a roster nobody outside the clubhouse ranked, and the clubhouse seems aware of it. "We are just a bunch of guys who really don't know exactly what we was expected and what we are doing right now," designated hitter Andrew Benintendi said. "We are dumb enough to think we can win it."
Three of them — Munetaka Murakami, Vargas and Peters — were All-Stars this year.
And at Wrigley, a 40-40 season
Hours later on the North Side, the Cubs beat the Miami Marlins 2-1 to take an NL wild card and reach the postseason for the second straight year. Seiya Suzuki homered; Matthew Boyd gave them seven innings.
The game's headline belonged to Pete Crow-Armstrong, who stole his 40th base to join the 40-40 club while leading the majors with 45 home runs. The Wrigley Field videoboard announced it, and the crowd answered with MVP chants.
The Cubs' route there was its own kind of run: 48 wins since June 20, a date on which they stood three games above .500.
The rarest part
Chicago has two teams and very little history of both being good at once. Thursday was only the fourth time since 1906 — the year the Cubs and White Sox met in the World Series — that both have reached the postseason in the same season.
Reporting from MLB.com, NBC Sports, WTTW News and Yahoo Sports.
