Before we took a tour of the White Sox's longest home runs of the 2025 season on Friday, we had to acknowledge that there wasn't a such post for the 2024 team because they hit too few of them.
And since we didn't review the White Sox's longest homers of 2024 due to supply chain disruptions, we sure as hell didn't cover the White Sox's best wins during a season where they set the record for most losses in a season.
But while the home run post came back after a mere one-year hiatus, it's been a couple years since we've reviewed the White Sox's signature victories. We also tabled the post in 2023, when they went 61-101 in Pedro Grifol's first and only full season. The on-field product deteriorated so severely that Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn lost their jobs while fans unfurled banners pleading for Jerry Reinsdorf to sell the team, so there wasn't a point in pretending that the fun times actually mattered.
The 2025 White Sox finished one game worse than the 2023 team, so they run into the same issues that team had, where it's kinda pointless to rank wins during a season where no individual game had real stakes on their standing. It didn't quite feel the same, though. Perhaps it's because we're catching the White Sox on an upswing instead of halfway through a steep decline, or maybe it's merely because Will Venable is a far more palatable spokesperson, and it'll just take him longer to run out of things to say.
For our sake, let's assume it's the former. If there are better days ahead, and players already on hand are going to be a part of it, then there were probably some games that foreshadowed how next year's White Sox turned into a more competitive product. Rather than try to sort them into a top-10 list when none of them possessed significant stakes, let's group them into the kind of wins the 2026 White Sox will hope to produce more of.
Bookends
- March 27: White Sox 8, Angels 1
- Sept. 28: White Sox 8, Nationals 0
The serial position effect is a combination of the primacy effect and recency bias, in that when people are presented with a list of things, they're likely to remember the first and last items, but the middle gets murky in a hurry. If you presented the 2025 White Sox season to an unfamiliar fan by only reading aloud the list of scores, they might be hazily remembered as one of the greatest teams of all time. Blame Cam Booser for ruining the symmetry by giving up a solo shot with two outs in the ninth on Opening Day.
Luis Robert Jr. showcases
- May 1: White Sox 8, Brewers 0
- July 18: White Sox 10, Pirates 1
Assuming Chris Getz makes good on his rhetoric and exercises Luis Robert Jr.'s $20 million option, these games best explain what he could possibly see. He opened the game against Milwaukee by generating a five-run swing in the first inning by robbing Rhys Hoskins of a grand slam, then ripping an RBI single through the left side to kick off a four-RBI night at the plate.
He put together a similar kind of highlight reel at PNC Park, albeit with lower leverage. He paired a perfect day at the plate -- 2-for-2 with a homer, two walks and three runs scored -- with two outstanding plays in center, including a catch-of-the-year candidate.
OH MY, LUIS ROBERT JR. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/eXtrnUMvyZ
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 18, 2025
This is what the White Sox have in mind when they call him the most talented player on the field. It probably won't be enough to justify the salary, but at least we have a very concrete idea of what they're chasing.
Sweeps
- July 20: White Sox 7, Pirates 2
- Sept. 4: White Sox 11, Twins 8
It might surprise you to learn that the 2025 White Sox had as many sweeps as the 2024 version, but at least they were a little more inspiring. They opened the second half by posting routing numbers at PNC Park, after which the usually mild-mannered Will Venable shouted "Way to sweep 'em, boys!" into the coaches' room with profanity mixed in.
They then opened the final month by recording their first ever four-game sweep in Minnesota, even though they trailed in all four games. Colson Montgomery punctuated the demoralization of the Twins with the White Sox's second-longest homer of the season, which is the kind of bullying they haven't been able to pull off the last three years. Whenever they return to the realm of contending, it'll probably first take this bum-slaying form.
Seizing the days
- May 24: White Sox 10, Rangers 5
- July 30: White Sox 9, Phillies 3
While the White Sox have been accustomed to letting games get away from them, they flashed the ability to capitalize on mistakes and turn games into laughers. They trailed the Rangers 4-2 entering the sixth, but when two Texas outfielders collided flagging down Austin Slater's deep drive to open the inning, the Sox turned the leadoff "triple" into a six-run bonanza that flipped the game on its head.
Two months later, the Sox broke open a 2-2 game with seven consecutive hits in a seven-run seventh, even overcoming an overaggressive send by Justin Jirschele at the start of it.
Avoiding embarrassments
- Sept. 5: White Sox 7, Tigers 5
- Sept. 26: White Sox 10, Nationals 9
The games we just described were the inverse images of what the White Sox experienced twice in September. They logged their sixth straight win -- all in come-from-behind fashion -- by rallying against Detroit, even though they fell behind on the most White Sox of fashions with a two-run wild pitch.
To open the final series of the season, the White Sox blew a seven-run lead against the Nationals, only for Montgomery to bail them out with a two-run homer that put the Sox back on top for good, turning what would've been the season's second-worst loss into a humbling victory.
Pride, if nothing else
- April 11: White Sox 11, Red Sox 1
- July 11: White Sox 5, Guardians 4 (11 innings)
- July 25: White Sox 12, Cubs 5
The White Sox spent a lot of the season suffering slings and arrows, but they occasionally showed the ability to punch back in timely fashion. When the Red Sox came to town looking for a get-right series against a Chicago team that had lost eight straight, and Garrett Crochet said playing for Boston "felt like the big leagues," the White Sox instead took the first two games of the series, with the Red Sox needing a Crochet gem to avoid a stinging sweep.
While the Sox lost 11 of 13 games against the Guardians and five of six to the Cubs, they made a couple of wins count. They outlasted Cleveland in extra innings on the back end of a doubleheader to salvage a split after the unveiling of Mark Buehrle's statue, and then they jumped on Shota Imanaga for five runs over the first two innings to make their only victory in the crosstown series an entertaining one.
At some point, "at least they won one" won't be the standard by which the White Sox teams are judged. Until then, White Sox fans being rewarded for coming to the park despite unfavorable odds will have to suffice.
