Sox surge adds some spice to Crosstown Classic — is it legit?

You can throw out the records when the Cubs play the White Sox, and often that's necessary — the Cubs and Sox have both had winning records entering the city series only four times in the 29 seasons of inter-league play — 2004, 2005, 2008 and the abbreviated 2020 season.

When they met in August last season at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Cubs (57-60) were 29 games better than the White Sox (37-66) — tied for the largest disparity between them in the history of the rivalry. And despite that huge difference in record, the Cubs weren't exactly a contender — nine games behind the Brewers in the NL Central and seven games behind the Padres and Diamondbacks for the second wild-card (with four other teams between them).

As a native South Sider who grew up rooting for both teams, I've always pulled for the team with the better chance to make the playoffs (and it was usually one or the other, at best). But that was the Cubs, almost by default last year.

The disparity was similar when the Sox and Cubs played the opener of the 2025 city series at Rate Field on Friday night. The Cubs (60-42) were 23 1/2 games better than the Sox (37-66), though a much more legitimate contender this time — in second place in the division and leading the wild-card race (with 5 1/2 games of cushion). But a recent surge by the White Sox added a pretty good chunk of spice to the rivalry. The Sox were 5-1 since the All-Star break. The Cubs were 3-3 and had lost three of their previous four games.

Almost on cue, the Sox obliterated the Cubs and their best starter, Shota Imanaga, hitting four home runs off Shota in the first four innings and taking an 11-0 lead after five innings en route to a 12-5 victory.

Cub fans could point to the standings to muffle giddy-in-the-moment Sox fans. But Sox fans had every right to believe they might have won more than the battle. With each game, this surge by the Sox looks more and more legitimate. "The Plan" — not all that dissimilar to what the Cubs did when Theo Epstein took over 2011 — looks like it's working.

It's still a modest boost, but relative to the Sox' historically poor recent misery — they were 134-287 since the start of the 2023 season (a .318 winning percentage, a pace for 52-110 in three consecutive seasons) — pretty encouraging. Three players acquired in recent sell-offs — infielder Chase Meidroth (for Garrett Crochet), catcher Edgar Quero (for Lucas Giolito) and first baseman Miguel Vargas (for Michael Kopech) were a combined 10-for-14 with three RBIs on Friday night. (They were 6-for-8 against Imanaga, an All-Star pitcher.)

And 2021 first-round draft pick Colson Montgomery, who was so lost in the minors earlier this season that he was sent to Arizona for fixing, homered for the third consecutive game to improve his OPS in 17 big-league games to .853.

It's early, but the fact that developmental players are at the root of this surge isn't insignificant. The Sox are still on a full-season pace to lose 100 games for the third consecutive season (59-103). But at the rate their going, they won't be on that pace for long. It's a low bar, but after bottoming out (they hope) at 41-121 last season, losing fewer than 100 games with the arrow pointing up for several prospects developed by the Sox is a success for the organization. And some much-needed credibility for general manager Chris Getz, who literally seemed like more a part of the problem with the Sox than the solution when he was hired to replace Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn in 2023.

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The Sox's victory on Friday night evened the all-time cross-town series record at 75-75. I covered the first regular-season inter-league series in 1997 at new Comiskey Park for the Sun-Times. The Cubs won the opener 8-3 behind Kevin Foster.

Though the Sox and Cubs played various exhibition games over the years (including a popular annual series that drew big crowds despite being only an exhibition), the first regular-season meeting was a huge event — though not a sell-out, which was surprising. Still the intensity was there — the teams were so locked-in that there were zero errors in the three games.

As part of a Sun-Times contingent that included Joe Goddard, Dave van Dyck, Mike Kiley, Elliott Harris and Phil Rosenthal, I thought I had the two toughest assignments after the opening game — interviewing Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and Sox poor-sport loser Jaime Navarro after a Sox loss. But it all worked out, and I'm glad to have been a part of an historic Chicago baseball event. The Cubs-Sox series isn't what it used to be. It'll take two contending teams for that to happen. And that might not be as far away as it appears.