Lineup for today is pretty much the same but Sheets is the DH and moved up to 6th.

A. Pollock RF
L. Robert CF
J. Abreu 1B...

It's here! It's here!



Lineup:

A. Pollock RF
L. Robert CF
J. Abreu1B
Y. Grandal...

Figured since the spring training thread is going to be closed as well as the 'who is going to Detroit?' one this is as good a place to start the first...

Let it be written. Let it be known. On September 23rd, 2021 at approximately 4:00 PM local time in Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox won the American League Central Division title and ensured themselves a playoff spot for the second consecutive year. This marks the first time in their history the Sox have managed to make the playoffs two years in a row. It's been a LONG time coming but for those of us who witnessed today it was worth the wait.

It hasn't been an easy slog, though the division title has been a foregone conclusion for several weeks now. Cleveland traded Cesar Hernandez to the Sox at the trade deadline pretty much surrendering and admitting they weren't going to catch our Boyz this year. However the Sox promptly took that surrender and sat on it, playing .500 ball over the remainder of the year while fighting niggling injuries and roller coaster offensive output while trying their best to walk the fine line between resting players and locking up the division. Mission accomplished at last. Well at least in part. There's still another week+ to go and then come the playoffs themselves. Right now that's a big mountain, but at least the team appears to be finally getting healthy with only Ryan Tepera currently still unavailable from the expected playoff roster.

The game itself was never in doubt. Tim Anderson led things off with a solo shot and then tacked on another 3-run blast in the second after both Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez added solo shots of their own. By the time the smoke had cleared the Sox were up 7-0 after 1.5. The offense didn't add anymore, but the pitching was solid and Tony LaRussa wasn't playing games. He yanked starting pitcher, Reynaldo Lopez in the 4th when he started struggling with control and gave up his second solo shot to close the lead to 5. The Sox brought in Garret Crochet who gave up a single but then got a double play grounder to end the inning. After that, it was bring in the late inning...

O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott penned those lines more than two hundred years ago. If I hadn’t learned that already, I would’ve thought he was writing about Tom Ricketts and his courtiers in the office tower looming over Clark Street. You know the place: 125,000 square feet of corporate glitz at Waveland and Clark on the former site of a coal yard. And it faces the $200 million hotel across the street that was previously a McDonald’s parking lot.

Add to that the new commercial building on Addison that replaced a string of locally owned storefronts. And don’t forget the acquisition of most of those three-flats behind the outfield that serve now as party rooms. If Chuck E. Cheese adopted a baseball theme, you’d have the model for “Wrigleyville.” Quotation marks are appropriate because there’s no neighborhood by that name – it’s more like Brigadoon or Camelot: not a place, but a state of mind.

All this avarice brought to mind those lines from Scott’s poem. The Cubs aren’t a ballclub as much as they are an ATM for the owners. The team pulled off a World Series win, boasted of a dynasty, and when the team’s fortunes waned the owners focused on their other fortunes. Instead of putting money on the field, they’re fielding money in a sportsbook building while cutting the team payroll in a series of disemboweling trades.

I have to admit it’s fun to watch air leak out of the Cubs’ hubris balloon. We’re Sox fans and we lived through several years of a rebuild, which to Rick Hahn’s credit he never tried to deny, unlike Jed Hoyer’s double-talk about it being different now. Yeah, it’s different, all right.

As I write this, the White Sox are decisively winning the interleague series against the Cubs. Steve Greenberg wrote in the Sun-Times, “There are ships passing in the night, and then there are the Sox and Cubs. One team an ocean liner steaming for the deep...

1958- He came so close to perfection. White Sox lefthander Billy Pierce fired four one-hitters in his brilliant career, but he never came closer to baseball...

Longball beats the Sox. Sox now 6-19 when they do not hit a home run.

Grandal and Engel hit the big flies.

Keuchel and bullpen handle the Jays.

While we wait for word on Madrigal, you can kill time with this analysis of Moncada's elite BABIP skills, and how's he's able to get all those extra hits....

Carry on.

Obviously, potentially losing Madrigal for a while is the bigger story, but the way the whole team came undone in that eighth inning was frustrating beyond...

The inaugural episode of the Sox Degrees Podcast, with Jason Benetti and Len Kasper, dropped today. They interviewed Rick Hahn. However one feels about...

The offense had a bad day. Giolito deserved a better fate. Take the series tomorrow afternoon.

I drove all the way from the northwest side to Bridgeport to eat a Yerminator burger back in April, but apart from that one home run Mercedes has not...

TA gets the day off with Mendick at SS. Collins is catching.

https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/...544137/photo/1