{"id":24387,"date":"2026-06-11T06:57:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=24387"},"modified":"2026-06-11T06:57:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:57:50","slug":"first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/first-place\/","title":{"rendered":"First Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Three years ago, the White Sox finished the season with their worst record since 1970.\u00a0 Two years ago, they set the all-time MLB record with 121 losses.\u00a0 Last year, they “improved” by 19 games but still managed their third straight 100-loss season.\u00a0 Today, they sit alone in first place in the AL Central, the latest they have done so since winning the division in 2021.<\/p>\n

Are they for real?\u00a0 A large part of me says no.\u00a0 Heading into last Friday’s series against the Phillies, they had the easiest schedule so far in the entire league.\u00a0 They are currently in the middle of a gauntlet, facing the Phillies, Braves, Dodgers, and Yankees before their first meeting with the Guardians.\u00a0 That said, the small piece that believes this might really be happening is growing.\u00a0 After dropping two of three in Philadelphia, they’ve beaten the Braves, who have the best record in baseball, two straight.\u00a0 They are 25-14 since Mike Vasil acquired his magic wand and, since the Crosstown Series against the Cubs in mid-May, they have the best record in baseball.<\/p>\n

Assuming the weather holds out, they have one more game against the Braves tonight before the Dodgers come to town for the weekend.\u00a0 If they can head into that Cleveland series with their heads above water, then I might just become a believer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, the White Sox finished the season with their worst record since 1970.\u00a0 Two years ago, they set the all-time MLB record with 121 losses.\u00a0 Last year, they “improved” by 19 games but still managed their third straight 100-loss season.\u00a0 Today, they sit alone in first place in the AL Central, the latest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[125,120,116,9687,12085,2244,254,49,51],"class_list":["post-24387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-braves","tag-cubs","tag-dodgers","tag-guardians","tag-mike-vasil","tag-mlb","tag-phillies","tag-white-sox","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24388,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24387\/revisions\/24388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}