Chicago White Sox: The daunting portion of the schedule is over

The Chicago White Sox just finished a very hard portion of the schedule. They had a four-series stretch against the New York Yankees, Oakland A’s, Tampa Bay Rays, and Toronto Blue Jays. In that span of 14 games, they went 7-7.

They did it by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday by a final score of 10-7. It was a bit of a tough game for them but that is what you can come to expect against a good team like that. The offense showed up early and they were able to just hang on enough.

When you see four straight playoff teams ahead on the schedule, it can be daunting. It started with the Field of Dreams game in Iowa a couple of weeks ago. The White Sox won that game in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. It was an incredible win and a good start to a very hard stretch.

There were lots of ups and downs over this time. One of the ups was the return of Carlos Rodon in this big win over the Jays. He had been missing for 19 days because of arm fatigue. Now he is back and ready to make a run in the playoffs. He went 5.0 innings with two runs against and three strikeouts. He wasn’t necessarily the dominant Rodon we have become used to seeing but it was a good first game back.

The Chicago White Sox went 7-7 during this daunting portion of the schedule.

Having a good showing against good teams is big when you are a World Series contender yourself. Splitting this series with the Blue Jays assured a .500 record over this daunting span of games. It would have been nice to see them do a little bit better than .500 but with all things considered, it was a fine stretch of baseball.

Things are going to lighten up for the White Sox now over the next few weeks. It will begin this weekend with the Crosstown Classic. The Chicago Cubs will be at Guaranteed Rate Field. Following that will be the Pittsburgh Pirates. Those two series should be ones that the Chicago White Sox play well in.

They need to show up ready to play or they will lose but they have the talent to get it done. With the way that they played against the good teams they just faced, it is fair to be confident. These next few weeks are where they can really get ready for a big October run.