White Sox Blank Cubs, Carry a Four-Game AL Central Lead Home
A 3-0 shutout at Wrigley split the Crosstown series and left first place on the South Side with 36 games to play.
Two seasons removed from the 121-loss nadir of 2024, the Chicago White Sox are in first place in late August — and on Wednesday they played like a team that intends to stay there, blanking the Cubs 3-0 at Wrigley Field to split the season's Crosstown series at 3-3.
Jose Urquidy set the tone with six scoreless innings, and the offense did just enough behind him: Andrew Benintendi broke the deadlock with an RBI single in the sixth, and rookie Braden Montgomery doubled home two more in the eighth. Montgomery also flashed the arm, cutting down a runner at third base in the sixth, while Sam Antonacci took away a hit with a leaping catch in left in the seventh, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
"Really tough road trip with Detroit and then the Cubs. You go 4-2 on that road trip, really every one of those games we're in, we played well," manager Will Venable told the Sun-Times.
The math with 36 to go
The live AL Central table shows why this one mattered. The White Sox sit at 66-60 through 126 games, four games clear of the Twins (63-65), with the Guardians and Tigers a further game and a half back at 61-66. Nobody else in the division is over .500 — but nobody has gone away, either.
The division is also the realistic door to October. The Yankees (71-55) and Red Sox (68-59) currently occupy the top AL wild-card spots, so a South Side team that slips out of first would be chasing the AL East's leftovers down the stretch. Holding the Central is the cleaner path, and the Sox now get to defend that cushion at home, where the schedule turns friendlier after a six-game road swing through Detroit and Wrigley.
First place in August guarantees nothing. But for a franchise that was a punchline 24 months ago, a four-game lead with 36 left is no longer a fluke — it's a race they control.