White Sox starting to jell in first homestand of season

CHICAGO -- There’s an abundance of things to like where Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy is concerned.

Pocket pancakes. Surprise turtles. An exciting team, playing together, and consistently sitting near the top of the National League.

White Sox fans might favor Murphy’s assessment of their 2026 squad, coming in the midst of the Brewers’ three-game sweep of the South Siders on the opening weekend at American Family Field.

“There's some talent on the other side,” Murphy said. “Mark my words right now: That Chicago White Sox team will be something to be reckoned with in that division.”

Murphy didn’t specify the season of reckoning for the White Sox, and they certainly aren’t considered favorites in the American League Central at this stage of the rebuild. But despite their 2-1 loss to open the Baltimore series Monday night at Rate Field, they have provided a better example of their desired on-field style than a dismal 1-5 start on the road.

“That’s where some of the experience from last year helps,” White Sox right-hander Davis Martin said. “You realize how long of a season it actually is. No one is hitting the panic button after six games. You are going to have bad six game stretches over 162.”

“We really didn’t play good baseball the first week,” said fellow right-handed starter Sean Burke. “We all know that. I think everybody in the locker room was frustrated with how we were playing. Just getting back home and settling things down and getting back to play our game.”

Milwaukee basically ran over the White Sox during those first two games, with the Sox striking out 20 times and issuing 10 walks on Opening Day. Christian Yelich punctuated the sweep with an eighth-inning go-ahead pinch-hit home run off White Sox closer Seranthony Domínguez in Game 3.

Results weren’t much better in Miami, with Sandy Alcantara hurling a 93-pitch shutout for the series victory. Returning home against the defending AL champs from Toronto and a Baltimore team figuring to be improved from last year set the White Sox up for a fourth straight miserable early-April start.

Playing at home, though, sparked the White Sox. They swept three games from the Blue Jays in Chicago for the first time since 1995 and showed what their style of winning could look like. Manager Will Venable described it well after a 3-0 victory Sunday.

“We are a good team,” Venable said. “We are finding different ways to win. Contributions from everybody. With the way our group is set up, that’s how we are going to have to win games. It’s going to have to be with defense. It’s going to be with different guys on offense. On the pitching staff, we had guys coming out of the bullpen who were able to throw effective innings.”

“Everybody has to come together,” said Martin, Sunday’s winning pitcher. “A team like us, we have to hit well, score when we have runners in scoring position. We have to have shutdown innings as starters. Everybody has to come together and play well. Our defense has to be crisp. We have to play a clean game of baseball and that’s going to be our game. If we do that well, we’ll be in a good spot.”

The White Sox didn’t do much offensively in the opener against Baltimore, limited to four hits overall and three hits through eight innings during a game where Grant Taylor served as opener for the third time on the homestand and threw a third straight scoreless inning. They put the potential winning run on base in the ninth inning against closer Ryan Helsley, who walked Murakami and Miguel Vargas to start the frame, but Helsley struck out Edgar Quero to strand runners on first and third and preserve the Orioles victory.

Even with the first home loss, the White Sox are moving toward that good spot spoken of by Martin. Good enough “to be reckoned with in the division,” as Murphy said?

Certainly good enough to make this homestand more representative of their expected play than what happened in Milwaukee.

“You go on the road to a team that last year made the NLCS. The fans there were loud,” Martin said. “The atmosphere was crazy, and you go from Camelback Ranch to that. The game can speed up a little bit. I think realizing what the mistakes were, kind of slowing the game down, getting back to our baseball was a high priority for us.”