Chicago White Sox: There is a clear team to root for in the ALCS

They say socks travel in pairs. Unfortunately, the Chicago White Sox came up just short of the ALCS as they were defeated by the Houston Astros in the ALDS. It was a tough way to go out but it is what it is. Now, Houston will host the Boston Red Sox after a somewhat contentious series with the White Sox. Now, there is a clear team for White Sox fans to root for in this series.

The slogan “Sox in 5” dominated White Sox Twitter once they fell done 0-2 to Houston in the last series. It became even more prevalent when they won game three and got back into the series. Unfortunately, it ended there as the Astros won game four in a rather dominating fashion.

However, “Sox in 5” doesn’t have to end there. The White Sox and Astros don’t seem to get along these days. There was plenty of conflict between the fanbase and teams during the series. Guaranteed Rate Field was a very hostile place for the Astros to play in games three and four. Most White Sox fans are going to root for the Red Sox in this upcoming series.

The Red Sox, love them or hate them, also helped kick start the White Sox rebuild. They gave them two stud prospects in Michael Kopech and Yoan Moncada in exchange for Chris Sale. The White Sox were wasting Sale’s dominance back then so it was good to see him have so much success in Boston. Now, it would be nice to see Sale continue to do well.

The Chicago White Sox will always be connected to Chris Sale as he was incredible.

Sale will be on the mound for the Red Sox in game one of the series too. Nathan Eovaldi, who has become an outstanding October pitcher, will be the guy for game two. The Astros will be without Lance McCullers Jr. who dominated the White Sox in two of their three wins. It is going to be so interesting to see how these teams fare against one another.

There are a lot of players on the Red Sox that are easy to root for as well. Xander Bogaerts, JD Martinez, and Rafael Devers are some of the best players in the league. There are also studs like Alex Verdugo and Kike Hernandez who make outstanding plays all the time. Hopefully, they can carry some of this magic into 2022.

The final four teams have three of the four the same as last year. The Red Sox is the one team that is new but they are not new to success as an organization. They punted on the 2020 short season after trading Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers and ended up with one of the best prospects in the draft as a result. We can only hope that the White Sox ends up with their level of sustained success going forward. 2021 was a big step towards that.