{"id":450933,"date":"2026-09-29T08:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T08:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450933\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T08:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T08:16:15","slug":"column-chicago-white-sox-can-save-baseball-from-houston-astros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450933\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: Chicago White Sox can save baseball from Houston Astros"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2014 It was not a job they asked for, but it\u2019s one that\u2019s been thrust upon the Chicago White Sox after their storybook regular season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Someone has to save baseball from the Houston Astros.<\/p>\n

Why not the Sox?<\/p>\n

The Astros are a .500 team with an outside chance to go to the World Series, which would be a potential disaster for MLB, Fox Sports and America in general. They\u2019ve never recovered from the cheating scandal, and probably never will. No one outside Texas can love this team.<\/p>\n

The Sox, meanwhile, are a Cinderella\u2019s Cinderella, two years removed from having the worst record in modern baseball history<\/a>. If the Sox were on \u201cAmerican Idol,\u201d they\u2019d be Jennifer Hudson \u2014 impossible to root against.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say they should be (rooting for the Sox),\u201d general manager Chris Getz said at Monday\u2019s wild-card series workout day at Daikin Park. \u201cBut the amount of people that have reached out, whether they be other organizations or people that perhaps are fans of other clubs, they really have complimented us and found something special in our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it has attracted people beyond White Sox fans, which is cool. You look at where we were and where we are now, and people are curious about how we got here and what did we do? I think a lot of people can get behind that. They can, and so we\u2019re going to continue to be who we are and go out there and play the best baseball we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to circumstances beyond their control, the Sox won\u2019t get to play in front of their fans unless they beat the Astros in this best-of-three wild-card series. They spent most of the second half leading the American League Central before Cleveland\u2019s late run gave them the division title and the playoff bye.<\/p>\n

So now the Sox will just have to do it the hard way, a recurring theme of this season.<\/p>\n

\"HoustonHouston Astros pitcher Peter Lambert hands the ball to manager Joe Espada, right, after being pulled during the third inning of a baseball game against the Athletics on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in West Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo\/Scott Marshall)<\/p>\n

On the bright side, they\u2019ll get to play one of the least imposing playoff teams in history \u2014 the 2026 Astros. It\u2019s a team so bad that owner Jim Crane fired their general manager on Aug. 24 and never even bothered to replace him.<\/p>\n

Crane and his three assistant GMs are making the roster decisions along with manager Joe Espada. Imagine how Sox fans would feel if Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf was making the postseason pitching decisions.<\/p>\n

Espada said Monday the Astros would go with a bullpen day for Game 1.<\/p>\n

Advantage Sox? Uh, wait. White Sox manager Will Venable said they\u2019re also going with a modified bullpen day, too.<\/p>\n

Bulk-free Sox?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be a lot of different ways we go about it,\u201d Venable said, adding that a 3-4 inning bulk guy was probably not in the cards.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a battle of bullpen arms with every matchup undergoing extra scrutiny, which happens this time of year every year. Get ready to second-guess on your favorite social media site.<\/p>\n

The Sox are not a great team by anyone\u2019s definition. But they can be great on any given day, and at least they won 84 games and had a run differential of plus-56, becoming one of only six teams in the AL with a positive run differential. None of the AL West teams finished with a positive run differential, the first time since divisional play that\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think the Sox would be favored over the Astros at a neutral site, but once again the Sox are underdogs, at least according to the oddsmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the beginning of the season, what were our odds of making it here?\u201d Sox outfielder Tristan Peters said. \u201cWe don\u2019t care about that kind of stuff. If people don\u2019t expect us to go far in the playoffs \u2026 we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, the Sox are not going to say anything disrespectful of the Astros. That\u2019s\u00a0not proper baseball etiquette. But other than superstar Yordan Alvarez, this is not a particularly scary lineup. It does have some sock, but the Astros were middle-of-the-pack or lower in every major category but home run hitting, where they led the majors with 226. They ranked 13th in runs scored (734) and 18th in hitting (.242).<\/p>\n

Their pitching was not much to worry about either \u2014 they ranked 24th with a 4.47 ERA. Defensively speaking, the Astros were 18th in Outs Above Average (minus-10).<\/p>\n

In other words, mediocrity might be an upgrade for this team.<\/p>\n

But in a short series, anything goes.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago White Sox pitcher Britt Burns reacts to the solo home run hit by Tito Landrum of the Baltimore Orioles, not shown, in the 10th inning of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, on Oct. 8, 1983, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. (Rob Kozloff\/AP)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes Game 1 so pivotal and puts Venable under so much pressure to make the right pitching moves. Sox fans still recall manager Rick Rentaria\u2019s shaky performance in Game 3 of the 2020 wild-card series against the Oakland A\u2019s. Dane Dunning was the opener and came out in the first for Garrett Crochet, who was removed with forearm tightness in the second for Aaron Bummer, forcing an audible in the plans.<\/p>\n

The Sox wasted their top relievers early and used nine pitchers overall in a 6-4 loss to the A\u2019s. Renteria was fired after the playoffs. Sometimes you can stick with a pitcher too long, as Tony La Russa did in the 1983 American League Championship Series, leaving Britt Burns in for the 10th inning of Game 4 and watching Baltimore\u2019s Tito Landrum hit a game-winning home run at old Comiskey Park.<\/p>\n

Playoff decisions that don\u2019t work out never die. They linger in fans\u2019 minds forever.<\/p>\n

Whether Sox fans like the way Venable has handled his staff, it\u2019s worked more often than not. There are no Tom Seavers in the rotation. But this is his first playoff game as manager, so it will be interesting to see how he handles it in a short series.<\/p>\n

Venable said Monday he doesn\u2019t feel any extra pressure because of the vast amount of preparation involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery decision we make is very thoughtful,\u201d he said. \u201cOur process for that decision, we feel like at this point, is dialed in. That doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to get it right every time. That doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s going to work all the time \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s the playoffs, (with all) the scrutiny and everything, and the impact of each one of these decisions means more. But I\u2019m excited about it. I\u2019m ready for it and our staff is ready for it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

A delicious season like this still needs a tasty dessert. Let\u2019s see what dish the Sox will serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 It was not a job they asked for, but it\u2019s one that\u2019s been thrust upon the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[155116,63227,155113,56,5513,58,57,155114,38990,151721,154762,155115,105041,134430,134448],"class_list":["post-450933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-al-wild-card","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chris-getz","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-jerry-reinsdorf","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-rick-rentaria","tag-tony-la-russa","tag-tristan-peters","tag-will-venable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}