Catcher Edgar Quero recalled saying during spring training that the White Sox have a really good team. It sounded nice but maybe not realistic: the Sox had lost at least 100 games in three straight seasons, and seemed years away from being decent, let alone really good.
Maybe Quero knew something before the rest of the baseball world. Or maybe Quero and the Sox were faking it until they made it real.
Well, almost two months into the season, the Sox look real.
Quero’s two-run walk-off home run in the 10th inning Sunday gave the Sox a 9-8 win over the Cubs. In front of a rowdy and split crowd of 38,608, the Sox finished off a 7-2 homestand, their best of at least nine games since an 8-2 run in late June and early July 2008.
“It means a lot for everybody in the clubhouse,” Quero said. “It means a lot to win this series. It means a lot for everybody, especially since we are playing really good baseball. I’m happy for this team.”
The Sox haven’t had much to be happy about for years. They’re a franchise in the middle of their second massive rebuild in a decade, and little was expected of them in 2026 other than some progress.
But this homestand that ended showed they might be ahead of schedule. Over the nine games, they proved they can win a variety of ways. There was the tense 2-1 win last Sunday over the Mariners, the sweep of the Royals when they scored six runs in each game and Saturday night’s power display when they hit five home runs.
Then there was the resilience they showed Sunday, when they trailed 3-0 and 4-1.
“They’ve just continued to play all nine innings, every single pitch,” manager Will Venable said.
That the homestand ended with a series win over the rival Cubs – their first since 2022 – just gives the Sox more momentum before they head west to play the Mariners and Giants.
“Obviously the rivalry is a big thing,” said Tristan Peters, whose three-run eighth-inning home run gave the Sox a 7-4 lead. “We know that they’re a good team, but we also believe that we’re a really good team too. And we just proved that.”
This Sox team is clearly not perfect. If they’re going to actually contend in the American League, they’ll need to help the bullpen, a sore spot that hurt them Sunday when Seranthony Dominguez gave up Michael Conforto’s game-tying three-run homer in the ninth. Despite Davis Martin’s emergence, the rotation could use at least another proven arm. And there’s no proof the Sox lineup can keep producing the way it has over a full 162-game season, maybe under the pressure of a playoff race when each at-bat gets more intense.
Yet as this homestand and Sunday highlighted, these Sox have earned some trust. And even if they don’t make a run, things feel much better than they have recently, like it’s a franchise that’s actually going the right way after years of burning goodwill with their fans.
The victories also feel legit. This version of the Sox doesn’t have to tell themselves they’re capable of winning or convince rightfully skeptical outsiders.
“We’re bringing in the right guys, we’re bringing in great leadership with our coaching staff, we’re bringing in great teammates,” shortstop Colson Montgomery said. “The whole ‘fake it till you make it’ thing, it can be true and it can be contagious. Once you start winning, it’s like all right, this is real, it’s not fake. I think what we have going on here is real.”