PHILADELPHIA — If the Chicago White Sox want to be considered one of the better teams in baseball, they’re going to have to beat the best teams.
On a toasty Friday in Philadelphia, with a game-time temperature of 90 degrees, the Sox began a 12-game stretch that could determine whether MLB’s biggest surprise has staying power.
Those 12 games are against the Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, four big payroll teams that know how to win.
Adding to the degree of difficulty is the fact the Sox have to do it without slugger Munetaka Murakami, their most valuable player.
“I don’t think it’s a test,” manager Will Venable said before Friday’s game. “Every day in the big leagues is challenging. We play good teams every single day. Certainly, this stretch is going to be tough, but I think we’re all excited about the opportunity. We do it without Mune, without (Kyle) Teel.
“But we’re excited about the group that we have and the ability to go out there and do whatever we can to win a baseball game. What I appreciate about our group is that it turned into an approach that I don’t think we’re worried too much about who we’re playing. It’s about us and the things we can control.”
In truth, the Sox should be ecstatic if they go 6-6 in this stretch. It’s still a rebuilding team, and they’re facing the hottest team (the Phillies) and three of the top four teams in pitching — the Dodgers (first), Braves (second) and Yankees (fourth).
But the Sox are beyond the point where just playing .500 is considered acceptable to them, no matter the competition.
“It’s the major leagues, any team can beat you at any time,” ace Davis Martin said Friday. “We’re just focusing on what we need to do today to win, and then we are going to reassess and do it again tomorrow, and do it again the next day and the next day. And hopefully look up sometime in August and we’re in the position where we want to be.”
The Phillies entered Friday’s game with a major-league-best 25-11 record since April 25, when they snapped a 10-game losing streak. A change in skippers, from Rob Thomson to Don Mattingly, who was named interim manager on April 28, has coincided with the change in direction.
Everyone knew this Phillies team had too much talent to continue its losing ways, but it took Mattingly’s cool hand to turn things around. Maybe the best thing to happen to the Phillies was Alex Cora turning down president Dave Dombrowski’s offer to replace Thomson.
Mattingly was impressed with the Sox, who he watched grow up while serving as bench coach in Toronto.
“They’re just a young club growing,” Mattingly said. “They’ve had those guys over there playing now a few years, starting to play a couple years together, and they brought in a couple older guys that can play early on. They’re a different club, for sure. They present some problems. They do a little bit of platooning and pinch hit and stuff like that, so it’s not cookie-cutter. They can do a lot of different things to you.”
The Sox looked loose and relaxed before the game, with 10 players at the batting cage during batting practice, some waiting for their cuts and others just hanging around, having already taken theirs. That’s the kind of camaraderie that tends to develop from going through some tough times together and coming out on the other side.
This is a team that lost 121 games only two years ago, which Martin knows well. Some Sox fans claimed to disown the team back then, and now are jumping back on the bandwagon.
“The more the merrier,” Martin said. “I’m just glad the fans that were there in ’24 and ’25 are getting this resurgence.”
Martin watched a couple of funny videos on Instagram that reminded him of how far the Sox have come in a short period of time.
“It was how bad we looked in ’24 and ’25, and the difference, the energy of all the stuff that’s happened this year,” he said. “And then all the happy things that have happened the first two months — the walk-offs. It’s a really cool video that shows you how fast this game can change.”
No one is expecting any miracles from the Sox, especially without Murakami’s moon shots. But the offense has fared well so far in his absence. They scored 27 runs and hit eight home runs in their first five games since Murakami was placed on the IL.
Colson Montgomery had a tough series in Minnesota, going 0-for-12 with seven strikeouts. But Venable wasn’t concerned that the shortstop was trying to do too much to make up for Murakami’s absence in the lineup.
“Not at all,” the manager said. “All of these guys understood that as much of an impact as Mune made, that every single one of them was making an impact playing their game and being themselves. As far as I’ve observed, since Mune has left we’ve seen more of the same.
“Guys certainly understand that Mune is a significant loss. But we were doing well because of other guys, too. They know that. I don’t see anyone, or specifically Colson, pressing or trying to do too much.”
