Friday’s series opener against the last-place New York Mets brings more than just another game to Rate Field.
For the White Sox, it begins a stretch that should be far more manageable the rest of the way. With the fourth-easiest remaining schedule over their final 35 games, the Sox have a clear path in front of them. Whether they win the AL Central is entirely in their hands.
But the bigger draw for a lot of fans is Luis Robert Jr. coming back to Rate Field for the first time since the offseason trade that closed the book on his six seasons on the South Side. When he steps into the box for his first at-bat, the reaction will be one to watch, and there should be plenty of people in the park wearing his name or his face.
By the end of the 2025 campaign, it was obvious Robert wasn’t going to fetch anything close to the kind of return he might have commanded after his All-Star season in 2023. Still, with the final season of his seven-year, $70 million deal looming, the Sox wanted the contract off the books and were willing to move him however they could.
The main piece they got back in the deal was Luisangel Acuna, a player whose expectations were never especially high. That fits the profile of the 2026 Sox, too.
Acuna has mostly matched that modest billing, though he has carved out a role as a useful utility player on a surprise playoff team. Chicago probably couldn’t have asked for much more.
Robert, meanwhile, has had the worst season of his career in his first year with the Mets. He missed almost three months because of a lumbar spine disc herniation, but since returning he has played nearly every game. Even so, he is headed toward career lows across the board, and that has only increased the scrutiny around him.
The Mets have made the situation even stranger. After spending big in a way only the Los Angeles Dodgers usually attempt these days, they have spent most of the season in last place in the NL East and became unexpected sellers at the trade deadline.
So this series puts two teams on very different tracks from the ones plenty of people expected before Opening Day. At the center of it is Robert, once part of a Sox core that fell far short of championship hopes and now living through another rough chapter with a new club.
Baseball sure can be cruel to certain players, can't it?
In Other News...
Mets Outfield Decision Is Raising A Frustrating A.J. Ewing Question
In the wake of injuries to Luis Robert Jr. and Juan Soto, the Mets have had to patch together their outfield on the fly, and that has created a much bigger role for rookies Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing. Interim manager Andy Green had said the plan was to let Ewing handle center field in most games, a sensible arrangement given how well the rookie has performed defensively this season and how much the club has needed stability in the middle of the outfield.
But the recent decision to shift Robert back to center has reopened a frustrating question for the Mets: if Ewing has already shown he can handle the position, why not fully commit to him there moving forward? The club is trying to balance short-term lineup flexibility with long-term evaluation, and with the outfield still in flux, the way it uses Ewing now may say plenty about how it views him beyond this injury stretch. [Read more 🡒]
Darryl Strawberry Had A Powerful Message After Nick Kyrgios News
Nick Kyrgioss provisional suspension after a positive cocaine test from an event in Mallorca has drawn attention well beyond tennis, and Darryl Strawberry weighed in with the perspective of someone who knows how public struggle can spill into a wider conversation. Strawberry, the former Mets star who is now a Christian minister, framed the situation around understanding and recovery when substance abuse is part of the picture.
Kyrgios has already apologized publicly, saying his drug use was tied to the physical and mental strain of injuries and the sense that his career may be nearing its end. For a player whose talent and volatility have kept him in the spotlight for years, the next chapter now carries a different kind of pressure, one that puts the focus on how he responds once the initial shock fades. [Read more 🡒]
Mets Fans Have A New Reason To Question This Roster Strategy
The Mets roster-building choices are drawing fresh scrutiny as the White Sox keep turning seemingly modest moves into useful major league pieces. Several Chicago players who were available along the way have since emerged as the sort of depth and upside the Mets could have used, especially as the club continues to balance present needs with long-term planning. In a market where every roster spot matters, those comparisons are hard to ignore.
Chicagos track record with those acquisitions also adds another layer to the conversation. The White Sox not only identified players the Mets passed by, they helped put them in positions to contribute, which makes the missed connections stand out even more from New Yorks side. For a team still trying to justify its roster strategy, the bigger question is whether these were isolated omissions or part of a pattern. [Read more 🡒]