White Sox Hit Nine Over .500 — Two Years After Losing 121
Saturday's 3-2 win in Minnesota pushed Chicago's AL Central lead to 4.5 games and sealed a record no team ever wanted to be eligible for.
The most improbable division lead in baseball got a little sturdier on Saturday. The Chicago White Sox beat the Twins 3-2 in Minnesota (MLB.com) to reach 72-63 — nine games over .500 for the first time all season, after five failed attempts at that threshold — and pushed their AL Central lead over Cleveland to 4.5 games.
From historic losers to first place
The scale of the turnaround is hard to overstate. Chicago lost 101, 121, and 102 games in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — the 121-loss season in 2024 being one of the worst in modern major-league history. According to Yardbarker, citing OptaSTATS, Friday's win made the Sox the winningest single-season team ever among clubs that lost 100-plus in each of the three prior years. And it didn't start well: this team opened 2026 at 7-14 before going 65-49 the rest of the way.
How they got here
The surge has been building since spring. Back in June, CBS Sports pointed to a lineup suddenly loaded with power — Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery, and Miguel Vargas were all on a 38-homer pace — and a rotation stabilized by Davis Martin, who opened the year 9-2 with a 2.41 ERA. The formula has held up through August.
The stretch run
Per Yardbarker, Chicago's magic number to clinch the division is 23, with the Guardians sitting at .500 (68-68). The Sox go for the series win in Minnesota on Sunday afternoon before the schedule turns toward September, where head-to-head games with Cleveland loom as the last realistic obstacle between the South Side and its first division title since 2021.
For a fan base that spent three straight summers watching lottery-pick baseball, a September that matters is the real milestone — everything after that is a bonus.