W8 Meets L3: The Split Collision Continues
Red Sox won their eighth straight. White Sox lost their third straight. The split math keeps getting worse.
Diddja see what happened in Chicago last night? Twelve-eleven. Thirteen innings. The Red Sox won their eighth straight. The White Sox lost their third straight. And the split — the one I've been tracking since June — ticked up another point.
Kid ran the numbers: White Sox are 34-21 at home, 25-34 on the road. That's a 188-point split over 114 games. It was 187 yesterday. It was 179 a week ago. The differential isn't stabilizing — it's accelerating.
Here's the thing about last night that matters more than the final score: the Red Sox are 35-22 on the road. The White Sox can't win away from home. The Red Sox can't lose there. When those two profiles collide, you get a 13-inning, 23-run game where the road team wins. Again.
The Red Sox are now 63-51, W8, and 5.0 games back of the Rays. They've shaved half a game off the deficit in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the White Sox are leading the AL Central with a losing road record. First place. Sub-.500 away from home. 114 games into the season.
I've been saying since June that this split costs them a playoff spot. We're past the 70% mark of the season now. The fault line isn't healing. It's spreading.
The Braves are also on W8 at 70-45. The Rays won again and are 68-46. The Red Sox are the hottest team in the American League and they're still five games back. But the gap was six games a week ago. The mountain is shrinking.
The White Sox? They just gave up 12 runs at home to the best road team in the East. They're on L3. The split is 188 points. And August just started.