The South Side is still playing baseball in October. The White Sox just swept the Astros out of the Wild Card round, their first playoff series win since the 2005 championship run, and the Division Series opens Saturday against the same Cleveland team that stole the Central from them in the final week. Across town, the Cubs’ 89-win season ended with a whimper in San Diego. Here’s everything that happened from September 1 to today, checked against the box scores.
The short version
- White Sox: 84–78, second in the AL Central by one game, No. 6 seed. Swept Houston 6–3 and 7–3. ALDS vs. Cleveland starts Saturday, Oct. 3.
- Cubs: 89–73, second in the NL Central, No. 5 seed. Swept by San Diego 8–0 and 4–1. Season over.
- Chicago’s MVP candidate: Pete Crow-Armstrong, 45 HR / 41 SB, the first 40–40 Cub ever.
- Chicago’s home-run trio: Murakami 35, Vargas 33, Montgomery 31 — the first three-man 30-homer club on the South Side since 2008.
White Sox: the road through September
Sept. 4 — Two 30th homers in one game
The month opened with a moment Rate Field hadn’t seen in a generation. In a 4–1 win over the Twins, Miguel Vargas hit his 30th home run in the first inning, and Colson Montgomery followed with his 30th in the fourth. Two teammates reaching 30 in the same game had never happened in franchise history. Vargas got there first, becoming just the fifth primary third baseman in Sox history with a 30-homer season. Munetaka Murakami, tied with both of them at 29 that night, joined the club within days, giving the Sox their first trio of 30-homer hitters since 2008. Erick Fedde threw five scoreless innings. The Sox sat at 74–67, two and a half games up on Cleveland with 21 to play.
By Sept. 6 the team had 188 home runs, fifth in the majors, with nearly 45 percent of its runs coming on the long ball. That was the identity: force strikes, do damage.
Mid-September — The slump that cost the division
Then the bats went cold at the worst time. By Sept. 14 the Sox were 4–8 in the month, and all three sluggers were hitting under .225 for September. Montgomery was at .119, Murakami at .114. The team dropped 12 of 17.
Cleveland, meanwhile, did what Cleveland does in September. The Guardians took two of three from the Sox in their head-to-head series, and on Sept. 16 they moved into first place by half a game, 78–75 to 77–75. The Sox had led the division since early August. They never got the lead back.
Sept. 20 — Vargas makes history anyway
Even in the slump, Vargas kept producing. He scored his 100th run of the season on Sept. 20, the first White Sox player to do that since Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye in 2006. He finished the year as the only player in franchise history with 30 doubles, 30 homers, 100 runs and 20 stolen bases in one season.
Sept. 26 — Lost the Central, clinched the Wild Card, same day
The Sox lost 9–6 to the Rockies at home. Davis Martin was pulled after two outs. The team went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, and Murakami’s seventh-inning fly ball died at the warning track with a potential game-tying three-run homer. That afternoon Cleveland beat Kansas City to clinch its third straight AL Central title.
But the same Cleveland win locked the Sox into the final AL Wild Card spot. September ended 11–13, their first losing month since a 1–4 start in March. The Sox finished 84–78, one game behind the Guardians, despite winning the season series 7–6. Up from 60–102 the year before. Nobody in the front office expected this: Jerry Reinsdorf said he thought 2027 was the year they’d contend.
Sept. 29–30 — Sweep in Houston
Game 1, 6–3. The Sox scored three in the second inning and never trailed. Montgomery launched a 432-foot solo shot in the fourth. Chicago finished with 11 hits while Houston went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Game 2, 7–3. Sam Antonacci led off with a double and the Sox hung four runs on Hunter Brown in the first inning; Brown was gone after two outs and 36 pitches. Chase Meidroth put it away with a three-run homer off Bryan Abreu in the sixth. Sean Burke gave four innings, Jordan Hicks threw two perfect frames with three strikeouts, and Erick Fedde closed the last two innings for the series. First playoff series win since 2005.
The numbers that got them here
- Munetaka Murakami — 35 HR, 77 RBI, .207. Led the team in homers in his first MLB season, made the All-Star team and the Home Run Derby.
- Miguel Vargas — 33 HR, 93 RBI, 101 R, 20 SB, .250. The engine.
- Colson Montgomery — 31 HR, 87 RBI.
- Chase Meidroth — .276, 87 R, 16 HR, and now a playoff homer.
- Andrew Benintendi — 78 RBI, 15 HR. Randal Grichuk — .299, 15 HR.
- Sean Burke — 11–7, 3.34 ERA, the staff ace. Erick Fedde — 8–9, 3.83. Grant Taylor — 7–3, 2.25 ERA, 10 saves.
- Team: 211 home runs.
What’s next: ALDS vs. Cleveland
ALDS FINAL · GUARDIANS WIN 3–2
Game 1 (Sat Oct 3, at Cleveland): White Sox 3, Guardians 0. Munetaka Murakami broke it open with a two-run homer in the fourth, and Grant Taylor closed it with a four-inning save.
Game 2 (Mon Oct 5, at Cleveland): White Sox 4, Guardians 3. Sean Burke threw 5⅓ innings of one-hit ball and Braden Montgomery’s two-run double in the sixth put the Sox up for good.
Game 3 (Wed Oct 7, at Rate Field): Guardians 9, White Sox 3. One win from the ALCS, the Sox struck out 19 times as Cleveland stayed alive.
Game 4 (Thu Oct 8, at Rate Field): Guardians 9, White Sox 5. Cleveland came from behind to force a deciding Game 5.
Game 5 (Sat Oct 10, at Cleveland): Guardians 2, White Sox 0. José Ramírez homered off Burke in the fourth and Gavin Williams struck out 12 in 5⅔ innings. Guardians pitching set a nine-inning postseason record with 21 strikeouts.
The season ends one win short of the ALCS, but it was the first Sox playoff series win since 2005. What a run, South Side.
Best of five. The Sox beat the Guardians 7 times in 13 tries this year.
- Game 1 — Sat., Oct. 3, in Cleveland, 12 p.m. CT, TBS
- Game 2 — Mon., Oct. 5, in Cleveland, 4 p.m. CT, TBS
- Game 3 — Wed., Oct. 7, at Rate Field, time TBD, TBS
- Game 4 — Thu., Oct. 8, at Rate Field, if necessary
- Game 5 — Sat., Oct. 10, in Cleveland, if necessary
Playoff baseball comes back to 35th and Shields on Wednesday. If you’re heading down, the Red Line to Sox-35th is still the move, and the bars along 35th and in Bridgeport will be packed. Looking for a place to watch? Find a South Side spot on the Route.
Cubs: 89 wins, two games, done
September — Good enough, not great
The Cubs never had a shot at the Brewers, who ran away with the Central at 103–59. Chicago went 10–13 in September and clinched the second straight postseason berth on Sept. 24 with a 2–1 win over Miami, locking in the No. 5 seed at 89–73.
The story of the season was Pete Crow-Armstrong. On Sept. 16 he hit his 43rd and 44th homers to set the franchise record for a left-handed hitter. He finished at 45 homers, 41 steals, 107 RBI, 119 runs and a .280 average, the seventh player in MLB history to go 40–40 and the first Cub. He’s the NL MVP frontrunner. Around him: Alex Bregman 28 HR / 93 RBI in year one of his five-year deal, Seiya Suzuki 26 / 86, Ian Happ 24, Michael Busch 20, Dansby Swanson 19. The Cubs scored 850 runs, the most in the majors. Shota Imanaga went 11–10 with a 3.77 ERA and Matthew Boyd 10–5.
Sept. 29–30 — Swept at Petco
The highest-scoring offense in baseball scored one run in two games. Game 1: Padres 8, Cubs 0. Game 2: Padres 4, Cubs 1. Eight hits total. Crow-Armstrong and Bregman, the 1–2 hitters, went a combined 0-for-15 with eight strikeouts. Nico Hoerner’s double in Game 2 was the only extra-base hit of the series. Mason Miller closed it out. This was the same Padres team the Cubs beat five times out of six in the regular season, including a 23–3 blowout on July 1. Crow-Armstrong afterward: “I’m just feeling pretty disappointed in myself.”
One city, one team left
For the first time in a long time, October belongs to the South Side alone. The team that lost 121 games two years ago is two series wins from the World Series. Go Sox.
Stats via Baseball-Reference and MLB.com; game accounts via the Chicago Sun-Times, AP and ESPN. Current through Oct. 1, 2026. Catch up on the summer: the July recap and the Crosstown Classic preview.