It took more than two decades, but the White Sox finally did it again.
Chicago followed up a 102-loss season a year ago and a 121-loss season two years ago by sweeping the Astros in the AL Wild Card Series, capped by Wednesday’s 7-3 win in Houston. For a franchise that has spent a long stretch near the bottom of the league, it was a long-awaited return to winning a postseason series.
The last time the White Sox got past a playoff round, they were finishing off a championship run. That 2005 team won 99 games, beat the Red Sox in the ALDS and the Angels in the ALCS, then handled Houston in the World Series.
Like this year’s matchup with the Astros, that title-clinching run ended in a sweep. Chicago wrapped it up with a 1-0 win in Game 4.
Back then, Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and Joe Crede led the offense, while Mark Buehrle and Jose Contreras anchored the pitching staff.
Now, 21 years later, the White Sox have finally broken through in the postseason again, and they did it against the same opponent.
Since that 2005 title, Chicago has only reached the playoffs three times. The first return came in 2008, when an 89-win team lost to the Rays in the ALDS. That began a 12-year drought that finally ended in the shortened 2020 season, when the White Sox went 35-25 over 60 games.
They were back again in 2021 after a 93-win season, only to lose to the Astros in the ALDS. After that, the club dropped back to the bottom of the standings before this 2026 breakthrough.
The White Sox’ postseason results since the 2005 World Series tell the story of the stretch they’ve just escaped.
In Other News...
Cardinals Just Added To A Trade Return Fans Need To Judge Carefully
The Lars Nootbaar deal from Aug. 3 is finally complete, and the Cardinals have filled in the last piece by adding right-hander Brian Curley from the Diamondbacks as the player to be named later. Curley, 23, was taken 92nd overall in 2025 out of Georgia and split the 2026 season between High-A and Double-A, where his numbers were uneven but he kept working his way through the system.
For St. Louis, this is less about immediate impact than adding another arm to the organizational pipeline. The Cardinals are treating Curley as pitching depth with a chance to develop further, which is often the quiet logic behind these delayed-return trades. The real question for fans is whether this turns into one of those moves that looks modest now but becomes easier to judge only after the next step in Curleys development plays out. [Read more 🡒]
Rainiel Rodriguez Is Entering Historic Territory For The Cardinals
Rainiel Rodriguez spent 2026 making a forceful case as one of the most advanced young hitters in the Cardinals system, and the numbers only got louder as the season went on. The 19-year-old led St. Louis prospects on MLB Pipeline after putting up a .999 OPS at Double-A and carrying that production into the minor league postseason, a year that also earned him Keith Laws Minor League Player of the Year recognition.
For a Cardinals organization that has spent plenty of time searching for impact bats, Rodriguezs rise stands out because of both the performance and the age at which it arrived. He finished with 23 home runs and a profile that kept separating him from the rest of the system, putting him in a place few players reach this quickly and leaving the next question centered on how fast the club will push him from here. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Just Got Pulled Into A Max Scherzer Debate
Max Scherzers name is back in the St. Louis conversation, and this time its less about what he once meant to the game and more about whether the Cardinals could make sense as a late-career landing spot. Greg Amsinger of MLB Network floated the idea on 104.1 KMOX Sports, pointing to the right-handers St. Louis roots and future Hall of Fame case as reasons the discussion has some local appeal.
The pitch comes with obvious caveats, though. Scherzer has dealt with declining performance and injuries over the past three seasons, which is why any Cardinals talk around him is as much about mentorship and depth as it is about innings and impact. Amsinger framed it as a possible fit for the 2027 season, but for now there has been no report of negotiations or any agreement, leaving it more as a debate than a destination. [Read more 🡒]