The White Sox Haven’t Won A Postseason Series Since 2005. Now They’re Back

Nine players on the White Sox roster were in kindergarten or younger the last time the franchise won a playoff series. That's the sort of fact that makes everybody over 30 reach for a cold drink.

On Wednesday, Chicago swept the Houston Astros 7-3 to take their AL Wild Card Series in two games. It was the first postseason series win since the 2005 World Series, a drought that only the Cincinnati Reds have exceeded in MLB. And just two years earlier, this team lost 121 games.

From 121 losses to a series win

Let that sink in for a second. Three straight seasons of 100-plus losses. Then a playoff berth, and now a series win, under second-year manager Will Venable. Baseball doesn't usually allow turnarounds this quick, which is why the story was impossible to ignore.

The decisive game started with four first-inning runs on two Astros errors. Chase Meidroth later hit a three-run homer off reliever Bryan Abreu in the sixth, giving Chicago a four-run cushion just minutes after Houston appeared to be on the verge of going ahead. Erick Fedde handled the final two innings.

There's a funny bonus to the story, too. A letter of support arrived from Pope Leo XIV, a famously devoted White Sox fan, and the team hasn't lost momentum since. I can't promise it's the cause, but I won't tell the clubhouse otherwise.

What a rebuild actually looks like

I want to push back a little on the way rebuilds get covered. When a team is losing 100 games, fans are told patience will pay off. When it finally pays off, the story becomes a miracle. Neither version tells you what the rebuild actually produced.

What it produced here is a young group that played like it had nothing to be afraid of. Rookie first baseman Munetaka Murakami has become the clubhouse's loudest personality, rating the team's celebration a hundred out of ten in a viral interview. Meidroth's homer came in the exact situation where veterans often tighten up.

The deeper point is cost. A rebuilding team gets its core cheaply and early, then has to prove it can win before the best players get expensive. That's the quiet clock behind every rebuild, and it makes this October feel more urgent than a typical first series win.

Caveats worth keeping

The honest version includes this: Houston wasn't at full strength. MLB.com described the Astros as undermanned, and the Houston crowd was unusually thin and booing by Game 2. The Astros also got swept at home in the wild card for the second straight playoff trip, following Detroit in 2024.

So a sweep of Houston doesn't prove Chicago is a title favorite. It proves they can handle a short series on the road, which is more than many playoff teams manage. The Sox also move on to face AL Central champion Cleveland in the ALDS beginning Saturday, which is a harder test.

But the fear of overreacting shouldn't swallow the story. Teams that lose 121 games don't normally appear in the second round of the playoffs two years later. Even if the run ends in Cleveland, the franchise has proven something its fans had stopped assuming.

A rebuild is judged by wins, but wins arrive late, and the real work happens early. If you were running a team that had just lost 121 games, would you have had the nerve to stay patient?