CHICAGO — The end game has arrived for the Chicago White Sox, with six games to make history or go home for a long offseason.

No team has made the postseason after losing 100 or more games the two previous seasons, and the Sox came into 2026 with three straight seasons of losing 100 or more.

The buzzword surrounding the Sox all season has been “resiliency,” and they showed that trait again this weekend in back-to-back wins over the Detroit Tigers after blowing a six-run lead in Friday night’s loss.

They’re now in good position to make the postseason as the third wild-card team, with a magic number of four entering Tuesday’s game in Kansas City. If the Sox can reduce it to at least two by Friday, they should clinch at home next weekend against the Colorado Rockies, the worst team in the majors.

A No. 6 seed would likely have them playing a wild-card series at the Texas Rangers, the current American League West leader, or the Houston Astros, who are one game behind the Rangers. In a best-case scenario, the Sox pull even with first-place Cleveland Guardians, who lead them by one game, and win the AL Central via the tiebreaker. That could also mean a first-round bye, giving the much-used bullpen a chance to catch its breath for the postseason.

There’s no chance of the Sox looking ahead.

A team full of rookies, second-year players, reclamation projects and outcasts, with only one player (Miguel Vargas) who might finish among the top 10 in MVP voting, doesn’t have the luxury of overlooking the Royals, or even the lowly Rockies.

They know what’s at stake, and can only focus on themselves and hope the rest of things fall into place.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t look ahead, since that’s what we do for a living.

The best path, of course, is to win all six games, which would mean the Sox finish the season with an eight-game win streak and an 86-76 record, riding into the postseason with momentum. They’re 7-3 against the Royals, and haven’t played the Rockies, who are 7-25 since Aug. 17. While back-to-back sweeps are possible, the Sox’s longest win streak this season is five games. Older Sox fans don’t like the idea of playing stretch run games in Kansas City, dating to a lost double-header against the since-relocated Kansas City A’s back in 1967. But that’s ancient history, and it’s best to forget the details.

Winning two of three against the Royals and Rockies is the more likely outcome, which would at least secure a wild-card spot. The Sox have not had a chance to celebrate a clincher at home in front of their fans since the 2008 Blackout Game.

A 3-3 split in the six games wouldn’t be preferable considering the level of the competition, but it would still probably get the Sox in. Going 2-4 would be bad news indeed, but could still work out in their favor since Texas and Houston aren’t exactly world-beaters. The Sox’s longest losing streak is four games, so they typically avoid back-to-back bad series.

Suffice to say anything worse than two wins this week would probably be a disaster.

It will all come down to the players, who’ve overcome doubts from the start of the season. They don’t have superstars, but manage to get by with a team-first ethos stressed by manager Will Venable.

While the Sox’s .209 batting average in September is the lowest in the majors, and their .356 slugging percentage ranks 29th this month, some players have stepped up, notably Vargas, the team’s undisputed MVP.

Over the last week Vargas has three home runs, 9 RBI and a 1.283 OPS in seven games, coming through when they’ve needed him the most. He was named AL Player of the Week for his performance. Three others who’ve also been doing their job without much hype are Chase Meidroth, who homered Sunday and has a .916 OPS in his last 10 games; Randal Grichuk, hitting .368 in his last 13 games with a 1.013 OPS; and rookie Sam Antonacci, hitting .333 with an .832 OPS over his last 13.

The grinder mentality of the Sox is apparent in all four of those players, and Grichuk’s game-winning home run with two outs in the ninth in St. Louis on Sept. 12 remains the team’s signature moment.

With sluggers Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery still struggling to find their stroke and Tristan Peters hitting .224 with two RBI in September, those four have to continue leading the way.

The Sox rotation doesn’t have any dominant arms, which is why Venable continues to use them in shorter stints and often after an opener. The decision to remove trade acquisition Luis Castillo from the mix was the right call by Venable after he continued his subpar performance from Seattle, though whether David Sandlin earned a chance to continue as his replacement is debatable. Anthony Kay, who starts Tuesday, is on a short leash due to a 7.06 ERA in his last five starts. They’ll need more out of Kay to keep him an option in the postseason rotation.

Erick Fedde, who pitches Wednesday, has been their closest thing to an ace down the stretch with a 1.57 ERA over his last six outings, three as a starter and three as a bulk pitcher. If the Sox make it as a wild-card team, Fedde appears to be in line to start Game 1 on Sept. 29. Sean Burke and Davis Martin figure to be the next in line, though it’s too early to project.

No matter who starts if they make the postseason, the bullpen will continue to take on an oversized role. Rookie Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor, both of whom could be part of the Sox rotation in the coming years, have continued to impress in leverage roles, and both can go multiple innings if needed.

Venable stopped using Taylor as an opener after he started four games in April, and he’s settled into his role as de facto closer over the last few months. Smith has not given up an earned run in 14 of 16 appearances, and has 38 strikeouts in 25 1/3 innings, along with a 1.07 ERA.

Chances like this don’t come around often, and progress isn’t always linear. One only needs look at the 2024 Royals, who won a wild-card series after a 106-loss season, to prove that. They regressed in ’25 and are on their way to 90-plus losses and a last-place finish this year.

The Sox weren’t marketed as a contender before the season, and even general manager Chris Getz was cautious when discussing how good his team would be. This team slowly grew on Sox fans, who saw themselves in the way they bounced back after tough losses.

“White Sox fans, I don’t think they like marketing anyways,” Martin told me last January at SoxFest in Bridgeport. “I think they just want us to go out there and be gritty, be a baseball team that plays all nine innings for 162 games. That’s what we want to be. We’re not marketing ourselves as anybody. We’re going to be ourselves and try to win games and play nine innings as hard as we can.”

Nine months later, that still sounds like the best formula for success.

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