House money, all season

From the outside, the 2026 White Sox have been playing with nothing to lose. Seventy-five wins with 16 games left already blows past what anyone projected for them.

“doing backstrokes in an infinity pool full of house money”

Inside, it feels different

The clubhouse sees a division lead down to 1.5 games and a six-day road trip that ends with three against second-place Cleveland. Something that should be theirs is slipping.

They think they're the best

Colson Montgomery said the Sox want the division because they believe they are the division's best team. To him, winning it is simply what should happen.

“We want to win the division because we feel like we are the best team in the division”

Nobody hands it over

Montgomery is clear-eyed that no rival will let Chicago cruise. The team has to earn every piece of it, and he says they all know that.

“Nobody is going to let us run off and have all this stuff.”

The slide is real

Chicago came into Friday having lost eight of its last 11, just swept by the fourth-place Pirates. Since the end of May, the Sox are a game under .500.

Innocence as a strategy

This is a club built on dugout goofiness and, in Montgomery's phrase, not knowing what it doesn't know. Rather than turn serious, they want the first-half looseness back.

“we don't know what we don't know”

Caring harder backfires

Sean Burke, who starts Monday in Cleveland, says the team cared as much in May as it does now. Manufacturing extra urgency would work against them.

“An added 'Oh we really care about these games' is kind of counterintuitive for us.”

Burke's arm, tested

His 156 innings are a career high, and two of the worst starts of his career came in his last three outings. That has raised fatigue questions.

He added work, not rest

Instead of backing off, Burke put back parts of his routine he had cut to save bullets, including long toss. The fix was returning to normal, not scaling down.

The math still favors them

Entering their final five series, the Sox are up two games in the loss column on Cleveland. One head-to-head win clinches the season series and the tiebreaker.

No panic button

Reliever Grant Taylor says the calendar does not change how they play. The approach has produced results, so they are staying with it.

“We're not hitting the panic button.”

A manager who's been here

Will Venable looks young for the job, but he was with the 2023 Rangers and has World Series experience to pull from. His team does not.

Normal is hard to hold

Venable wants things normal because normal built this lead. He also knows plenty is working against that, so the job is naming those forces out loud.

“You want to keep it as normal, because normal has got us into this position.”

The lesson coming

September games matter enough to make players anxious, and this young roster may be about to learn that firsthand. For now, they look immune to it.

Be patient, it passes

Montgomery points out that fans told in March they'd be here would be thrilled. A few shaky series do not change where the Sox stand.

“Gotta be patient. We know things are going to pass.”