White Sox Face Biggest Series of the Season in Detroit
The White Sox head to Detroit for a three-game series that could have major implications on the AL Central race, with Chicago's division lead down to just 2.5 games over the surging Tigers.
Video Transcript
This weekend, it's the biggest series of the year for the Chicago White Sox, a three-game set that could end up determining the AL Central.
The White Sox go to Detroit to play the Detroit Tigers, the red-hot Detroit Tigers, a team that is now sixty and sixty-one, that has played their way back into a playoff picture, thirty-eight and twenty-three since the end of May.
That end of May, the White Sox swept the Tigers back at Rate Field.
But yeah, the Tigers, thirty-eight and twenty-three over their last sixty-one games.
They have now the best run differential in the American League.
They traded Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize.
That hasn't seemed to matter or affect them much because they've stayed red hot even after the trade deadline, and now sit two and a half games back of the White Sox in the AL Central.
It's why losing a series to the Cincinnati Reds like the White Sox did this week is such a tough pill to swallow.
You got good pitching from Sean Burke on Tuesday, seven innings of one run ball.
You blew the lead, you lost the series because of it.
Those are adding up for the White Sox.
They've had quite a few games that they should win, that they choke away, that are now starting to add on.
They're eight and eleven over their last nineteen.
They're slowly inching back towards five hundred.
They're slowly losing their lead in the AL Central to teams like Detroit, who are very, very talented and playing very good baseball.
The White Sox need to win this series to add the cushion, to gain the momentum, to maybe get a tiebreaker.
Right now, season series with Detroit, three to three.
That tiebreaker could be the difference in the division.
So you win the series, you're up three and a half games on the Tigers with the advantage in the tiebreaker.
You sweep the Tigers, you basically win the tiebreaker with a five and a half game lead over them.
That basically gains back all the ground you've lost over the last few weeks.
You lose the series, Detroit's one and a half back.
You get swept, you're out of first place for the first time since July third, and it's not like the schedule is getting any easier.
The White Sox go to Wrigley with the Cubs.
They have to play the Braves for a pop-up game.
There's plenty more divisional match-ups, coming up here for the White Sox, but the intensity of the schedule the rest of the way makes every divisional match-up important, and this one feels essential for the momentum it will have for the rest of the AL Central race.
We may look back on the division at the end of the year and figure out that this series in the middle of August against the Tigers is where the division was decided.
The White Sox need to put their best foot forward.
