The Chicago White Sox are going to play against the Oakland Athletics in the first round.
The Chicago White Sox finished with a record of 35-25. That is a pace of a 94-68 record over a full 162 game season. There were a lot of big-time highs and big-time lows. The lows are how they ended the season as they finished with a record of 2-8. Even if they finished one game better, they would have been the American League Central Division champions. Instead, the Minnesota Twins finished one game better and the Sox tied with the Cleveland Indians who had the tiebreaker.
As a result, the White Sox fell all the way to the seventh seed. On a day where they could have finished as high as the second seed, they ended as the seventh seed on a very weird final day of the season. They now have the Oakland Athletics in the Wild Card Series. Not only do they have the A’s, who are the AL West Champions, but they also have to go play them there.
That is a tremendous challenge for the Chicago White Sox. The Sox are historically bad playing in that stadium and have lost eight of their last nine games there. In addition to that, the A’s led the American League with a 22-10 record in their stadium. However, the White Sox were tied for the second-best road record at 17-13. It should be interesting to see how they play against each other as neither of them knows how they match up against one another.
The White Sox are going to use Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel in games one and two respectively. We don’t know who the White Sox will go with if the series reaches a third game. The A’s still haven’t announced who will start in which games. The White Sox mash lefties and are 14-0 against lefty starters this season and the A’s have two lefties that could start games.
The A’s didn’t really have guys change their schedules down the stretch to prepare for the playoffs like the White Sox did but you would think the White Sox have a slight advantage in the starting rotation. Oakland’s depth there, however, might be better than the White Sox so winning the series in two games would be the smart way to go about it.
The White Sox offense needs to keep building as they go to Oakland. They were starting to get hot in the final two games against the Cubs so hopefully, they can keep it up here in Oakland with their two aces on the mound. It is exciting to have playoff White Sox baseball on our TVs again and hopefully they can get it done. If they win this series, anything beyond that is possible with many more exciting years to follow after that.