White Sox clinch postseason berth as inspiring turnaround continues
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KANSAS CITY -- To understand the 2026 White Sox postseason ascension, with a playoff berth officially clinched on Thursday afternoon after a 9-1 victory over the Royals, we must go back to an interview catcher Edgar Quero did with MLB.com.
That interview took place months before the 2025 season -- yes, 2025 -- when Quero predicted the White Sox to be improved because of their collective youthful energy, even coming off 121 losses.
“I mentioned it again in Spring Training,” Quero told MLB.com during a recent interview. “Maybe some people think I was crazy, but I’m not. The guys are proving it right now.
“I’ve played with a lot of players here in the Minor Leagues, we played in the playoffs, too. It’s the base of a really good team we play with right now. You can see the guys are hungry and we play really good baseball.”
This season has not been as strong on the field for Quero as his predictive skills, with the switch-hitting catcher going from co-starter behind the plate alongside Kyle Teel to off the playoff roster. But he still contributed through his walk-off home run against Ryan Rolison and the Cubs to capture the Crosstown Series at Rate Field on May 27. He added a walk-off single against the Yankees on July 29.
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Jose Urquidy, who has since moved on to the Phillies, struck out eight over six scoreless innings against the Cubs to avoid a sweep at Wrigley Field on Aug. 19. Jacob Gonzalez, the team’s top selection in the 2023 Draft, delivered his own walk-off hit to beat the Royals on June 27 before being traded to the Pirates two weeks later. The White Sox sum remains better than the talented individual parts.
To understand the White Sox first playoff appearance since winning the 2021 AL Central, the word “belief” needs to be highlighted, underlined and actually written in all caps. It has carried the White Sox as much as their 204 home runs as a team.
“They have belief in themselves, belief in each other,” White Sox manager Will Venable told MLB.com. “That can carry you a long way. It gets you through a lot of different situations. You look at some of the games we’ve played in, going to Yankee Stadium, going to Wrigley, playing against the best teams in this league and sold-out environments and high-leverage situations, and these guys have continued to believe.
“Playoffs are a different beast. But these games are a different beast, too. These meaningful games coming down the stretch. These guys continue to believe and whatever the ending is to this one, we all can agree that from the beginning, this group has as much self-belief as any group I’ve seen.”
It’s a group carrying a focus narrowed down to one day at a time, one game at a time, through a culture set by Venable.
“Everybody in here is really friends with each other. There’s no egos at all. We look forward to coming to the field,” designated hitter Andrew Benintendi said. “Years in the past, it would be like, ‘Oh gosh. How long do we have to be at the field?’
“We were losing. It’s been a lot more enjoyable this year. Guys are a lot more comfortable and have some experience now. Put all that together and things are just going better.”
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To understand why the White Sox are happy to be playing in October but still have the AL Central title squarely in their sights, a thorough look at where they came from is needed: Three straight seasons of 100-plus losses, including that ’24 team with a Modern Era record of 121 setbacks.
Benintendi and Miguel Vargas are the only position players from that roster at the end of ’24 still with the current squad. They made history the wrong way, not looking forward to the daily questions about their overall futility.
Now, they’ve reached a lofty plateau in becoming the first team to make the playoffs after losing 100-plus in at least two straight seasons, and the third team to reach the playoffs in a full season after losing 100 the year before. They are the model of consistency, having just two four-game losing streaks all year but never winning more than five in a row.
Their plan is for this organizational renaissance to continue in October.
“It has been a long way, especially for me,” Vargas said. “That’s why I guess I enjoy this moment a little bit more right now.”
“We are confident. We are just a bunch of guys who really don’t know exactly what we are doing as far as what was expected and what we are doing right now,” Benintendi said. “We are dumb enough to think we can win it. So, why not?”