From 121 Losses to First Place: The White Sox Are Running the AL Central
Two years after the worst season in modern MLB history, Chicago's South Siders lead their division by 4.5 games with just over five weeks to play.
Rebuilds are supposed to take longer than this. Two seasons removed from a 121-loss 2024 — the most defeats in modern MLB history — the Chicago White Sox sit alone in first place in the AL Central at 67-61, holding a 4.5-game lead over both the Twins and Guardians with roughly five weeks left, per Torch's live standings.
They extended the cushion on Friday night with a 6-4 home win over the Mets, part of a stretch in which manager Will Venable's team has simply refused to give the division back.
How they got here
The numbers behind the surge are real. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported this week, the Sox came off a 4-2 road trip through Detroit and Wrigley Field, closing the Crosstown series with a 3-0 shutout behind six scoreless innings from Jose Urquidy against one of MLB's best offenses. Rookie Braden Montgomery delivered both a run-saving outfield assist and a two-run double in that finale.
"Really tough road trip with Detroit and then the Cubs," Venable told the Sun-Times. "You go 4-2 on that road trip, really every one of those games we're in, we played well."
The foundation was visible as early as June, when CBS Sports noted the Sox had climbed into first place later in a season than at any point since their 2021 division-winning year, powered by a top-five home run attack and a breakout from starter Davis Martin.
Why it matters
The context makes this one of the season's best stories: 101 losses in 2023, 121 in 2024, 102 in 2025 — and now a division lead in late August. No one in the chasing pack is charging, either: Minnesota and Cleveland are both five games under .500.
The schedule will have its say — Torch's diamond fixtures show a September full of teams playing for their lives. But for the first time in half a decade, the White Sox are one of them.