PHILADELPHIA — The upstart White Sox raised some eyebrows when they finally cracked .500 last month while playing their best baseball in four years — an admittedly low bar.
They turned more heads with an extra-innings, walkoff Crosstown Classic win for the ages, and their entirely-too-early wild-card contention has national observers taking notice of what general manager Chris Getz has cooking on the South Side.
But MLB’s most surprising turnaround story might not convert skeptics into true believers until the end of the month, as the Sox embark on their biggest sustained test through a brutal stretch of the schedule rife with playoff contenders, starting this weekend in Philadelphia.
After facing a stacked Phillies’ lineup that figures to stay in the National League wild-card conversation despite their early-season turmoil, the Sox will head home for three-game sets against the Braves, who are running away with the NL East behind the best record in baseball, and the perennial World Series-contending Dodgers.
Then it’s off to Yankee Stadium before a run through the American League Central gantlet, highlighted by their first matchup of the year June 22-24 against the Guardians, whom the Sox are sizing up for the division lead.
Rational fans might save the postseason talk until seeing whether the Sox can make it through their daunting June trial with a respectable record, but that’s not the attitude in the clubhouse.
“We want to be the best team we possibly can, and it’s kind of a good litmus test for us to see where we’re at,” fireballing reliever Grant Taylor said. “We’re playing above .500 right now, but we want to go and beat those guys and show why we deserve to be in contention for being considered one of the best teams.
“I’m really excited about it. I think the guys in the clubhouse are excited about it, but every team in the big leagues is a tough team to beat,” Taylor said. “We’re going to go and treat it like it’s another day.”
That worked for the Sox over the first two months of the season, behind a surprising .735 team OPS entering play Friday powered by rookie sensation Munetaka Murakami, who could be sidelined till July with his hamstring injury.
But the Sox are catching some breaks of their own on an otherwise unforgiving calendar. They lucked out by not lining up against Philadelphia aces Zack Wheeler or Cristopher Sanchez, while avoiding three-time MVP Aaron Judge in New York after his rib fracture.
With a keel as even as it was during his 102-loss slog of a first-year campaign, manager Will Venable downplayed the prospect of an early-season test of his young club’s potential October mettle.
“Certainly this stretch is going to be tough, but I think we’re all excited about the opportunity,” Venable said. “We’ll do it without Mune, without [injured catcher Kyle] Teel, without some of our guys. 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 it has turned into an approach in which I don’t think we’re really worried too much about who we’re playing. It’s about us and the things that we can control, and we’ll really focus on those things,” Venable said.
Veteran outfielder Randal Grichuk, who signed with the Sox last month and saw plenty of postseason action earlier in his career with St. Louis and Toronto, said his message to his new teammates was to “just go give it your all, play hard and see where it lies.
“It’s an exciting stretch to really get a feel for where we’re at,” said Grichuk, who homered twice in the series opener at Citizens Bank Park. “We feel like we have a chance to play in October and those are the teams you got to do it against, obviously. We’ve had some success against Seattle since I’ve been here, and they’re a playoff team, great pitching.
“I’m personally excited about it,” Grichuk said. “I think it’s going to tell us a lot. These are four or five bulldog teams that we’re going to see over the next six series, so I’m fired up.”