Game Thread: White Sox (24-22) at Mariners (22-26)

Noah Schultz will have to limit his walks in Seattle tonight. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Whew, baby! Exhale everyone, and take the remainder of this pregame to rest on the laurels of an electric Crosstown conclusion that was almost certainly the best such series from a South Side perspective since 2021’s roller coaster three-gamer at then-Guaranteed Rate Field.

That one, you might remember, was also characterized by a lopsided win for each side and a dramatic, unlikely White Sox comeback to split the difference. There were also shades of 2019, when Eloy Jiménez’s ninth inning, game-winning bomb produced one of the iconic calls of Jason Benetti’s White Sox tenure and, just as importantly at the time, announced to baseball fans in Chicago that the Sox were once again worth paying attention to. View Link It remains to be seen what kind of trajectory the 2026 team will follow for the remainder of this summer, but while Benetti’s call might have been absent from Edgar Quero’s heroics yesterday, the image of pandemonium as he rounded the bases may similarly remain as a point of reference in the memory of this squad’s emergence from the abyss.

I’ve been calling it “Ricky’s Boys Don’t Quit: 2026 Version,” and it seems to keep holding true. That 2019 team was hovering around . 500 as late as the All-Star Break before fading down the stretch to the tune of 89 losses.

That 2019 team was also characterized by simultaneous, exciting and unlikely breakouts from Lucas Giolito, Yoán Moncada, and Tim Anderson, supplemented by Jiménez largely meeting expectations as a rookie, perhaps not dissimilar from what we’re witnessing out of Davis Martin, Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, and Munetaka Murakami now. What smells more promising this time around is that the major league roster in 2019 didn’t have a stream of incoming reinforcements anything near to what we’re expecting in 2026. Luis Robert Jr.