Three years. That’s how long White Sox fans have been eating dirt, watching this franchise crater to a 121-loss catastrophe in 2024, scratch out 60 wins in 2025, and absorb every national take about how the AL Central belonged to Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas City. Now it’s late June 2026, the White Sox are 41-37, sitting first in the division with a real pulse, and the baseball press is still staring somewhere else.
The part that should be in every headline right now: Munetaka Murakami has been on the IL since May 29 with a Grade 2 hamstring strain. He wasn’t some afterthought — he hit 20 home runs in 57 games before going down, led the team, and was on pace to challenge Kyle Schwarber for the MLB home run lead. The White Sox lost their best power hitter and then went right on winning.
Colson Montgomery is playing like a legitimate star at shortstop — .219/.312/.485, 20 home runs, 46 RBI. Miguel Vargas is hitting .237/.350/.470 with a 128 wRC+ (28 percent above league average) and 17 home runs, with enough speed to make a real All-Star case.
Vargas also has a feel for the big moment. On June 23, his go-ahead blast in the sixth handed Cleveland a 2-1 loss at Guaranteed Rate Field and kept the White Sox in first place. These are not names the national audience can pick out of a lineup yet. That’s the whole problem.
Before the season, the projections had this team at 67-95 with a 1.1 percent playoff probability. The preseason consensus slotted Cleveland as the division’s anchor and buried the White Sox in the rebuilding-team footnotes. Nobody accounted for a rotation that holds games, a lineup that manufactures runs without Murakami, and a team that has figured out how to win close ones.
The 2024 squad set a modern era record for losses. The 2025 version climbed out of the basement. The 2026 version is above .500 in late June without their best home run hitter and leading the AL Central. The baseball press needs to catch up. White Sox fans have been watching this unfold game by game for weeks. The story is right there. It’s not a fluke. It’s not a small sample size. It’s June 25th and this team is real.
Murakami is nearing his return window. When he comes back into a lineup already doing this damage, the AL Central conversation changes completely — whether the national media shows up for it or not.
"Winning was all I got on my mind."
The Miguel Vargas fan club meets here pic.twitter.com/Wh5ik5e8Xw
— Sox On 35th (@SoxOn35th) May 30, 2026
