White Sox extend AL Central lead over Guardians, Astros

Chicago's improbable season keeps rolling. The White Sox beat the Astros 5-1, and it wasn't close for most of the night, with Sean Burke doing the heavy lifting on the mound while Houston's pitchers fell apart around him.

Burke opened with a 31-pitch scoreless first, and from there he just kept mowing Houston down. Four innings in, he still hadn't allowed a hit. That's a stark contrast to his last three starts, where he'd allowed 10 runs and 25 baserunners over 13 1/3 innings. Whatever wasn't working then clicked tonight.

The Astros didn't make it easy on themselves, either. Houston walked 10 batters the day before this game, then kept the trend going, issuing 5 walks combined with the White Sox through just 1 2/3 innings. By the time Trammell's fifth-inning double broke up the no-hit bid, Chicago had already built a 3-0 lead almost entirely on free passes and two big two-out swings from Benintendi and Colson Montgomery.

Burke finished with 1 hit allowed over 5 2/3 scoreless innings, and the White Sox tacked on more walks late to close it out, 5-1. That's now a 3-game lead over Cleveland in the division and a 3 1/2-game cushion over Houston for the American League's No. 2 seed, per Scott Merkin.

Context makes this run feel bigger than one August night. No team has ever won a division title the season after losing 100 games, and the White Sox lost 102 games in 2025 and a modern-record 121 in 2024 — preseason odds gave them just a 0.5% shot at the AL Central this year, according to ESPN. Tommy Pham, who was on the 2024 club, put it simply pregame: things can change fast in this division, pointing to how quickly the Royals went from 100 losses to the playoffs.

It hasn't been pretty getting here. ESPN notes Chicago's rotation posted a 6.21 ERA in August, among the worst marks in the sport, with Luis Castillo scuffling and Davis Martin out injured — the offense and a suddenly-leaky Astros pitching staff have papered over a lot of the cracks. Burke logging his second straight strong outing, on the heels of that rough three-start stretch, is exactly the kind of stabilizing performance Chicago needs if it wants to hold off Cleveland and Houston down the stretch.