Chicago White Sox Surpass Last Season's Win Total With 51 Games To Play

The White Sox have come out of the All-Star break on fire at the plate, ranking second MLB with 91 runs. Broadly, that's main reason they're 10-4 since July 18 and tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in baseball.

But on Saturday, the White Sox pitching staff controlled a 1-0 victory over the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium from start to finish. Starter Aaron Civale tossed 6.1 shutout innings while allowing just one hit and striking out a season-high eight batters. He hasn't allowed an earned run in his last three starts, spanning 17.1 innings. Brandon Eisert and Jordan Leasure followed with 2.2 combined perfect innings. Offensively, rookie Kyle Teel's second-inning RBI single was all the White Sox would need.

With this win, the White Sox hit a notable benchmark in the 2025 season. At 42-69, they've surpassed last season's win total with 51 games to play. That's not necessarily a high bar, given the 2024 White Sox had the worst season in the modern era of MLB history, going 41-121.

Heading into the season, the White Sox were projected to win 61 games by Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections. That was the second-lowest projection, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies at 55. The White Sox over/under win total was set at 54.5 by the FanDuel Sportsbook going into the year, lowest in MLB.

So from that perspective, there's still a ways to go for the White Sox to exceed expectations. And in order to avoid a third-straight 100-loss season, they'll need to go 21-30 the rest of the way to achieve a 63-99 record.

But for a rebuilding organization, this season wasn't all about the major league team's win-loss record, rather the development of young talent throughout the major and minor leagues. And there has certainly been progress in that area.

Teel, acquired in the offseason as part of the Garrett Crochet trade, drove in what turned out to be the game-winning run in Saturday's win. Over the last two weeks, he's batting .391 with a 1.069 OPS and two home runs. That's made for a strong tandem with fellow rookie catcher Edgar Quero, who has a .935 OPS over the last month.

Shortstop Colson Montgomery, the White Sox 2021 first-round pick, has six home runs in his last 10 games and ranks second in MLB with 17 RBIs since the All-Star break. Lenyn Sosa has been with the White Sox since 2022 but is still just 25 years old, and he's been on a tear over the last month with a .321 batting average, .907 OPS, five home runs and 20 RBIs.

While the White Sox are intrigued by the progress of that young talent, it's also been good too see Luis Robert Jr. produce after an abysmal first half. The team opted not to trade him before Thursday's deadline, and since the All-Star break, Robert is slashing .385/.457/.538.

"Other teams have identified him as a guy that can help their club and there was an effort to acquire him," General manager Chris Getz said. "But certainly it wasn’t to the level we felt like could have met the mark for us to make a move on from a talent like Luis Robert. What he does defensively, offensively, what he’s capable of doing and certainly on the basepaths, we just love Luis Robert. We do. We've got more time and we just didn't feel like it made any sense for us."

Robert and the White Sox look to continue their strong start to the second half as they go for the series sweep against the Angels on Sunday at 3:07 p.m. CT.