White Sox vs. Astros: Wild Card Series Preview
The White Sox have been a tremendous story in 2026. The Astros slunk into the playoffs with a .500 record. Who has the upper hand?
For the first time since 2021, the Chicago White Sox are postseason-bound. Like in 2021, they’ve drawn the Houston Astros in the first round.
Unlike the first go-around, these two teams are playing in a best-of-three series, not the American League Division Series.
A lot’s changed for both organizations in the five years since that postseason matchup. The White Sox specifically have seen a complete overhaul of their core. Long gone are the days of Lucas Giolito and Dylan Cease in the rotation, with José Abreu, Tim Anderson, and Luis Robert Jr. defensively behind them.
Now, those in place are Sean Burke and Davis Martin, with Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery, and Tristan Peters positionally.
The Astros have seen a similar shift in core, but the constant is second baseman Jose Altuve and designated hitter Yordan Alvarez. Pretty much every core player around them is different from 2021, save for the injured Carlos Correa — who was re-acquired in 2025 — but those two are constants.
This matchup should be interesting. The White Sox have been something of a Cinderella story all year. Following three consecutive 100-loss seasons, they led the American League Central at various points throughout the 2026 campaign. Ultimately, they fell to the third Wild Card slot, but still a tremendous story for a team that had no external postseason aspirations.
On the other hand, the Astros got in thanks to the weakest division in the league. At 81-81, they beat out the Texas Rangers by one game in the AL West. They finished with a run differential of minus-32 and went 39-42 at home. That said, there’s oodles of postseason experience on this roster, even if not all of it with the Astros organization.
So, who holds the upper hand in this matchup?
Starting Pitching Matchups
Game 1: Hagen Smith vs. AJ Blubaugh
- Smith: 18 GP, 1.29 ERA, 28.0 IP, 41 K, 0.8 fWAR
- Blubaugh: 64 GP, 3.66 ERA, 96.0 IP, 94 K, 0.2 fWAR
It’s not every day you get the first game of a playoff series as a bullpen duel, but Game 1 of this series will be. For the White Sox, a young phenom in Smith will take the ball in Houston. He burst onto the scene this season. While not possessing an overpowering fastball, he racked up punchouts on one of the nastiest breaking balls in the league.
He will walk you if you let him, though, so it’ll be interesting to see the leash manager Will Venable gives him should he take an early walk on the wild side.
Blubaugh isn’t your typical reliever. While he didn’t even muster up a single “open” this year, he routinely provided multiple innings. He even threw three frames twice in 2026.
From a stuff standpoint, the White Sox have the upper hand, but as is a theme in this series, Blubaugh has many more MLB innings under his belt, including almost 70 more in 2026.
Advantage: White Sox
Forget the starting pitching matchup, a bullpen game heavily skews towards the White Sox. The Astros have talented arms in their ‘pen, but that mostly shows up in the back end. Overall, they had a bullpen ERA of 4.08 in the regular season – 17th in the league. The White Sox, on the other hand, finished eighth with a 3.70.
While Smith has roughly 100 fewer MLB innings than Blubaugh, his stuff should prevail in the early part of the game. Then, the White Sox have a stronger array of arms to take them to the finish line in Game 1.
Game 2: TBD vs. TBD
It’d be hard to imagine the Astros not going to Hunter Brown in this one, seeing as he last pitched Sept. 25. The unfortunate truth is that because the Astros went 81-81, they had to ride with their top dogs every chance they got because their division wasn’t wrapped up.
Had they controlled their destiny a bit more, perhaps Houston could’ve lined Brown up against the White Sox bullpen in Game 1.
As for the White Sox, it would similarly make sense for them to start Sean Burke, who also last pitched on Sept. 25. Neither starter has been confirmed yet, however.
Advantage: Astros
Brown is one of the best pitchers in the league. While Burke is no slouch himself, the pedigree that precedes Brown speaks for him. The right-hander has just 16.1 career playoff innings, but they’ve been brilliant ones. That includes his playoff start in 2024, in which he threw 5.2 innings of one-run ball against the Detroit Tigers, also at home, striking out nine.
Game 3 (If Necessary): TBD vs. TBD
Following the same pattern as Game 2, it’d make sense for this matchup to be Peter Lambert for Houston against Davis Martin for the White Sox.
Lambert came out of nowhere this season to dazzle across 29 starts for Houston, posting a 3.82 ERA, 2.4 fWAR, and 154 strikeouts. The former Colorado Rockies right-hander never had an ERA under 5.36 in the majors until this year, even improving it by half a run from his time in Nippon Professional Baseball a season ago.
Martin has had a rollercoaster of a season. Early on, he looked like a potential Cy Young Cinderella, but he was not sharp in the second half. He’s still an incredibly talented arm, and games are often shortened in October, but he’s not riding a hot hand going into this series.
Advantage: Coin Flip
Going talent-for-talent, the advantage skews slightly towards Martin. However, Lambert is the better arm, at least results-wise, going into the series itself. Couple that with the veteran lineup Houston possesses, and this matchup probably leans slightly in the Astros’ favor, but the White Sox have thrived as underdogs all season.
Key Storylines To Watch: Houston Astros
Do They Have the Arms To Fend Off Chicago’s Offense?
Besides Brown, and Lambert to a lesser degree, the Astros did not do a great job preventing runs in 2026. Their rotation was 28th in fWAR and 27th in ERA, while their bullpen ranked 18th and 17th, respectively.
Meanwhile, the White Sox tied for the fifth-highest wRC+ in the league this year while also clubbing the fifth-most home runs.
The beauty of a short series is the power of winning an individual game. Having someone like Brown, who is the best starter in this series, means the world for a team like the Astros. Getting that win, even if it’s Game 2, puts a ton of pressure on the White Sox to be perfect on the margins. Knowing that a pitcher of Brown’s caliber awaits them in Game 2 could increase the pressure on them to win Game 1.
Again, experience vastly favors the Astros when it comes to the postseason, even when factoring in the likes of outfielder Andrew Benintendi.
Can Experience Help Overcome a Mediocre Regular Season?
The scary unknown is what the future holds for the remaining cast of Houston’s 2022 World Series title. Altuve, for as much as he’s meant to this organization, is 36 years old and far away from his days as an elite player. He’s still productive enough, but in watching him play, it’s clear the Astros don’t have an abundance of time to get him another ring.
Then there’s Alvarez, who is only signed through 2028. With each passing plate appearance, he gets more and more expensive to retain.
Then there’s shortstop Jeremy Peña, who is also only controlled through 2028. He dealt with injuries the past two years, but he’s really come into his own at the MLB level.
This is still a solid roster overall, especially on offense, but will experience be enough to out-gun a younger, more dynamic, deeper White Sox team?
Key Storylines To Watch: Chicago White Sox
Can People Fear the Unknown?
There are a lot of variables at play here that we just don’t know when it comes to the White Sox. So many people are getting their first taste of October baseball. Some have been around it, like Miguel Vargas for a couple seasons in Los Angeles. But overall, there’s not a lot of experience in that dugout.
Manager Will Venable had four career plate appearances in October. Beyond him, there’s the likes of Randal Grichuk, Benintendi, and Tommy Pham on the offensive side as true “postseason experience” havers.
Pitching is another thing. Sean Newcomb, José Urquidy, and Jordan Hicks are among the contingent with the most.
You cannot fear what you don’t know entirely. But is the fact that so many players on this gritty White Sox team are getting their first taste of postseason ball something the opposition can use against them?
Will We See Hot or Cold Murakami in a Best-of-Three?
Murakami is one of the biggest power threats in baseball, but he’s also one of the streakiest bats.
He can get white hot and carry this lineup for weeks, but he can also get ice cold and sink them in the heart of the order. Thankfully for the White Sox, the Astros’ pitching, save for Brown and bullpen Ace Josh Hader, lacks star power. But in a short series, that doesn’t matter nearly as much.
Anybody can go 0-for-7 in a two-game sample, or 1-for-11 in a three. This series would be in no way indicative of the Japanese phenom’s ability to succeed in the postseason, but he’s the kind of hitter where he’ll either do that or go 5-for-11 with three home runs.
It’s the beauty and the curse of his profile, unfortunately.
Prediction: Astros in 3
In the end, a lack of experience coupled with not having the best starter in the series sets the White Sox up for a disappointing end to an otherwise miraculous season.
They should be incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved, as they’ve gone from three consecutive 100-loss seasons to becoming a legitimate threat in the American League. They have an abundance of talented young players, with more on the way. In the end, however, the Astros have the potential league MVP in addition to a 2025 Cy Young finalist.
Stars win shortened series, and while Chicago has some, Houston has better ones. But in 2027 and beyond, look out in the AL Central.
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