White Sox Lead a Pennant Race Nobody Saw Coming — and the AL West Is Under Water
Chicago's 10-4 rout of Texas padded an AL Central lead just two years removed from a 121-loss season, while the AL West's first-place team slipped below .500.
Five weeks from the finish line, the American League playoff picture has turned into one of the strangest races in recent memory — and the team sitting on top of the AL Central is the biggest surprise of all.
From 121 losses to first place
The Chicago White Sox hammered the Rangers 10-4 on Wednesday night to move to 70-63, stretching their AL Central lead over Cleveland (68-66) to 2.5 games. Two years ago this franchise lost a modern-era-record 121 games; that season was bookended by 101 losses in 2023 and 102 in 2025. CBS Sports flagged the surge back in June, when Chicago held first place at that point in a season for the first time since its 2021 division-winning year. This is no fluke of sequencing, either: the South Siders carry a +44 run differential, a contender's number.
A division below sea level
The night's other result deepened the AL West's identity crisis. The Yankees beat Houston 9-3, dropping the Astros to 66-67 — a first-place team below .500 in late August. Texas (66-68) sits a half game back after its loss in Chicago, with Seattle (64-70) still lurking. According to ESPN, the scrum for the West and the final wild card involves eight teams — and Detroit is the only one of them with a positive run differential.
Meanwhile, in the NL
The contrast with the National League is stark. Milwaukee (82-51) owns baseball's best record after an 8-1 cruise at Citi Field, the Dodgers (80-53) dropped a 6-5 decision in Atlanta to the 78-55 Braves, and all three NL division leaders have won at least 78 games. Houston's .496 winning percentage would rank fourth in the NL East. In the AL East, Tampa Bay (79-54) leads the Yankees by 3.5 games in the league's one conventional-looking race.
The regular season runs through September 27. Somebody has to win the AL West — the fun part is that, right now, nobody is.