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If they don’t win it on the field, wait til the Central is settled, win or lose. Celebrate with the fans on Sunday.

Real Sox news has kept me active on this board which is awesome but I wandered in here as the MC BR game will be a great game if BR can figure out how to cover, if not MC will walk away with a win or BR offense will have to control he clock and score 30. The Providence thing initially was he had to have done something but Plantz is not letting it die so I am thinking the parent stuff has some legs and that is too bad.

Will the Sox pop champagne when they clinch a playoff spot? Im thinking they might save the champagne celebration for a potential division title, but then what if that never occurs. Then no champagne celebration?

If they fail to make the playoffs, it wasn't a successful season. I wouldn't have made that proclamation in March of 2026, but expectations change, and as we sit here on September 21st....this team should make the playoffs, and if they don't, it was a large let down. Additionally, even if they make the playoffs, I actually feel worse about this team than I did in say July. With the way the 2nd half has gone, there are way more question marks about the future of this team than there was even a few months ago. C - Teel basically had a lost season and isn't going to see more than 150 AB's this year. On top of it, he's going to end the season batting below .200. Quero spent more time in AAA than MLB and put up a -0.8 WAR when he was in Chicago. The catching situation is not in as good of a spot as I thought when the season started. 1B - Murakami has been one of, if not the worst hitter in MLB during the 2nd half. Fantastic first half story, but we simply don't know who he is at this point. And makes the contract extension talks much more complicated moving forward. 2B - I like Meidroth and think he's got a place on the team moving forward. Ideally he's a super sub that still gets 450-500 AB's all over, but he's fine starting at 2B SS - Most disappointing player on the team. Colson took a huge step backwards in his development in 2026. I honestly don't know if you can consider him a "core" piece moving forward, especially with Caleb/Carlson/Roch in the system. 3B - If this is the real Vargas, think the Sox are fine at 3B for the next few years. LF - Good rookie year from Antonacci, especially playing out of his natural position, but want to see more overall production from the LF spot. Not his fault, but they need more from that position CF - Pretty remarkable season from Peters, came out of nowhere, but can we expect it again next season? Big unknown, but we're all rooting for him to succeed. RF - Again, we all want him to be successful, but not a good rookie campaign from Braden. Going to need drastic improvement from him moving forward. I'm not going to go through all the starters, but they have a collection of No. 3/4 starters on this team, and no one misses bats. Burke is on the borderline of being a No. 2, but need to see more. Hagen and Taylor were both great out of the pen, but long term hope has to be one, if not both of them getting a starting opportunity. Schultz had an incredibly disappointing 2026, as did pretty much every pitching prospect in the Sox system. tldr: Teel, Murakami, Colson, Branden all had high hopes for 2026, and don't know if we feel better about any of them as the season ends. If those guys aren't producing for the Sox over the next 2-3 years, this thing goes nowhere fast.

I doubt he plays so they should absolutely drag out that decision for strategic advantage that's massive news

I also left out that having both the 3rd wild card AND the division being able to be taken with something like 80 to 84 wins is unprecedented and gave hope for the playoffs in a season where that record would have left them 5-10 games (at least) out out of those respective playoff spots. Last year the last wild card had 87 wins, and the ALC winner had 88. In 2024 it was 86 and 92 respectively. In 2023 it was 90 and 97. In all but the 86 win wild card scenario, the White Sox would pretty much already be eliminated with a week to go.

If the Sox go 5-1 this week they probably win the division. So go do that.

"Baseball is a funny game" - Joe Garagiola. Expect the unexpected is all I'll say. You just don't know how into it Boston is going to be given they can't change their playoff positioning.

When you have only had five winning seasons since 2007 and have had three straight years of 100+ losses, getting to 82 wins and guaranteeing a winning season is just fine for me. Anything they can do over that is gravy. That being said to be fair when you look at the season if they don't win the division after leading it for over 2 1/2 months would be a disappointment. So the year overall is kind of a mixed bag to me. But you can't minimize how unexpected it would be for them to go from 102 losses to 82 wins. In fact that has never happened in MLB before.

4 wins should give us a decent shot at the division, especially if BOS wins 2 of 3...3 wins and probably even 2 will get us into the playoffs.

Success should mean you did something successful. Not making the playoffs, after being up 5.5 on the Guardians a month ago is not successful. Yes, expectations for this season were unanimously lower. Even me, who was basically most correct, had them at like 78 wins. Beating low expectations doesn't equal success, its just less bad.

Boston has their best 3 starters going. I don't know how long they will let them go but I would guess they are going to attack these 3 with Cleveland pretty normally. They might rest some starters this weekend closer to the playoffs starting. You don't want your hitters having too much time off heading to the post season.

But, I would also add that teams that have clinched will also rest some of their regulars especially players who have any health issues. Crochet is a major issue as to his status and it appears he won't start in the Cleveland series. Rafaela is also a major player for Boston and he is nursing an injury.

He’s getting shredded on social media for his reaction to essentially what is apparently a pulled hammy. Antonio Brown was especially ruthless.

I'm just trying to be realistic. As a 50 yr Sox fan I'm as excited as heck for this last week. I have also gone through enough heartbreak with this club to know it won't be easy.

4 wins and they make the playoffs no matter what. Anything under 4 wins against KC and Colorado would be a huge failure. With that said, I'm very curious how Boston will approach this series vs Cleveland now that they clinched a wildcard spot?

Lmao some of you are so excited to s%*# on a playoff run

Any Sox fan who has been one for any length of time will be sweating every pitch until they clinch. Nothing will be easy this week, I don't care who the opponent is. Teams that have been eliminated are often the most dangerous as they have no pressure whatsoever and would like nothing more than to knock a team out of the playoffs.

The argument that eliminated teams will lay down because they have nothing to play for doesn't really make sense. Whenever the Sox have everything to play for in September, they play their worst baseball.

Massive improvement from the past three years and probably a couple years ahead of "schedule". That's a very successful season. But with the playoffs well within reach, it would be disappointing if they didn't at least get in via the wild card.

This really looks like a GameThread

This time of the season you have no idea what your going to get from teams that are eliminated from the playoffs. Saying that, there has always been kind of an unwritten rule that teams that are eliminated put their best team on the field when playing teams that are still in the race. In other words nobody is going to be rolling over for the Sox these last 6 games. Both the Royals and the Rockies can hit enough to give you problems. What neither of them do well is pitch. Both are in the bottom 4 in MLB in team ERA. The Sox bats need to come alive this last week. Another thing you can't predict is how will the pressure effect the Sox. Clinching a playoff spot in the final 6 games will be stressful. You have some players that thrive in that pressure and some that wilt away. Let's hope the Sox have way more in the former category then the latter.

I would target the Jets game vs pushing it. That said - maybe this could force Caleb to really execute game plan and relevant check downs etc. coach him up / force him to do that for a few weeks and then unleash a new and improved mobile version!

If nothing else - make Philly game plan for two guys.

Famous last words. No sox fan should ever be confident about anything until the clincher.