Forget the final tally of this season series for a second. A 3-3 split sounds like nothing happened. Plenty happened.
The White Sox closed it out with a 3-0 shutout at Wrigley on Wednesday, and the way they did it should worry people more than the scoreline suggests. Sean Newcomb opened with two hitless innings, then Jose Urquidy came in and struck out eight without walking a batter, working deep against a Cubs lineup that entered the day as MLB's second-best scoring offense. Grant Taylor closed it out for his save and a completed two-hitter. That's a plan, executed against a good lineup, and it's the most encouraging thing I've seen from this White Sox pitching staff in a while.
Urquidy is the real story here, not the standings. A guy rebuilding his career after injuries cost him seasons just shut down a good offense for six innings in the highest-leverage environment the Crosstown rivalry offers. If he can repeat that even semi-regularly, the White Sox suddenly have a top-of-rotation arm they didn't clearly have a week ago.
Now, the AL Central lead. Chicago pushed it back to four games with the win, and I get why that sounds like validation. It isn't, not fully. The Sun-Times noted the White Sox have played close to .500 ball since June, propped up by a division that hasn't had much competition. A four-game lead over mediocrity is still a lead, but it's not the same as being a great team. Don't confuse the standings with the process.
The Cubs can walk away from this series feeling fine about themselves, and that's fair. Clay Holmes pitched well in his loss, getting a pile of groundball outs anyway. The shutout wasn't about the Cubs falling apart. It was a good lineup getting outpitched for a night. The Cubs took two of three, including a walk-off, and head into their next stretch holding a National League Wild Card spot. That's a team that's shown it can play playoff-caliber baseball against a playoff-caliber opponent, even while dropping the finale.
The score sitting there, 3-3, is a wash on paper and not much else. The real signal from this series is that Urquidy might be a legitimate weapon for the Sox down the stretch, and that Chicago's division lead is a lot softer than four games implies. Both can be true at once. Circle Urquidy's next couple of starts. They'll tell you more about October than anything in the standings right now.
