ST. LOUIS – The following question was posed to White Sox third baseman Colson Montgomery prior to his team’s 7-3 loss to the Cardinals on Friday night at Busch Stadium, in a game delayed one hour and 10 minutes by the potential for rain.
Is there something acceptable regarding just making the playoffs as a Wild Card, or does this team want nothing less than the American League Central title?
“Yeah, we want to win the division because we feel like we are the best team in the division,” Montgomery said. “That’s what should happen. You feel like you are the best team in your division or things like that, you feel like you should win it.”
If the White Sox (75-72) believe they are the best in the AL Central, then they need to start showing it soon. Their ninth loss in 12 games and fourth straight – marking just the second time this season they have lost as many as four in a row – coupled with Cleveland’s 5-2 victory in Minnesota, dropped the division advantage to just half a game. The two teams battle for the final three games of the 2026 season series from Monday-Wednesday at Progressive field.
White Sox southpaw Anthony Kay (9-9) stayed winless over his last six starts, allowing three runs on five hits in four innings with two strikeouts and one walk. The Cardinals (73-75) added three runs off Trevor Richards in the fifth to take control.
That control almost disappeared in the sixth, when the White Sox loaded the bases with one out via singles from Sam Antonacci and Kyle Teel and a walk issued by Luis Gastelum to Chase Meidroth. But Randal Grichuk struck out, and Miguel Vargas’ Statcast-projected 397-foot drive to left-center fell a few feet short of a game-tying grand slam and instead ended the inning on a smooth running catch by center fielder Nathan Church.
Vargas’ blast, with a 104.3 mph exit velocity, would have been a home run in 12 other ballparks, including Rate Field. If that moment wasn’t painful enough, Church took away extra bases from Braden Montgomery to end the seventh on a 402-foot drive with a 108.5 mph exit velocity.
“[Vargas] put a good swing on a ball. Braden put a good swing on a ball. Guy made two good plays,” Meidroth said. “If you want to nitpick, there are a few other execution moments we could have had, but a grand slam out of Vargy there is a different ballgame.”
Meidroth homered on the first pitch offered up by Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore and then went deep again in the third, increasing his career high to 14 with two long balls in four pitches. Otherwise, the offense continued to miss on that game-altering connection, finishing 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and leaving 12 men on base. They have scored eight runs total over these last four defeats.
Staying even-keeled, having fun and focusing solely on the game in front of them are three of the reasons why this team has been in first place since July 4. The White Sox need to follow that same path to prevent this funk from going well beyond four with 15 to play.
“That [Pittsburgh] series is done, move on to the next one,” right-hander Davis Martin said. “You get on a flight, into the hotel, get into a new park and it feels like a refresh. … Get back to who we are and that is us just being all ourselves.”
“Everyone knows what’s ahead of us,” Kay said. “We still have control of our own destiny and got to keep chipping away each day. Just keep playing our style of baseball.”
Manager Will Venable’s crew is one of the best MLB stories this season, and the late playoff pressure has not changed that. But nothing is guaranteed beyond Sept. 27. The Guardians (75-73) understand that idea as much as the White Sox, who also sit a half-game ahead of the Astros for the AL’s No. 2 seed and a playoff bye.
“If you told us at the beginning of the year that with 15 games left we’d have a division lead, I think everyone in this clubhouse would have signed up for it,” Kay said. “We’re just going to keep taking it day by day and keep grinding it out.”
“We have to go out there and take it,” Montgomery said. “Nobody is going to fold, nobody is going to let us run off and have all this stuff. We have to earn all this and we are all well aware of that. We just sit back and see what we are made of. I feel like we are going to be good.”