Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today's games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today's edition is brought to you by David Adler.
How big is the White Sox-Guardians series that starts today? Let's just ask one of the stars playing in it.
"This is why you play. This is meaningful baseball. These are playoff games," Chicago shortstop Colson Montgomery said. "This is determining your season. Come out flat, season is going to be over. I think we are going to be pretty juiced up for it and it’s going to be fun."
He's not lying. This is the series that could decide the American League Central. In a week full of series with big playoff implications, Sox-Guards just might be the biggest.
With two weeks remaining in the regular season, the White Sox (76-73) hold a half-game lead over the Guardians (76-74) in the division. Now the two teams are playing their final three head-to-head games.
Tonight's series opener in Cleveland is set for 6:40 p.m. ET on MLB.TV.
We have a full preview of the series up today from our two beat reporters, Scott Merkin and Tim Stebbins. But here's where things stand right now:
The White Sox, one of baseball's biggest surprises this season, have led the division for nearly all of the second half. Their lead grew to as big as 5 1/2 games on Aug. 16. But the Sox have slumped down the stretch -- they've won just four of their last 14 games.
The Guardians have been here before. They've won the division three of the last four years, and just last season, they pulled off a massive September comeback to overtake the Tigers. Now they have a chance to do the same to the White Sox -- and with a much smaller deficit than Cleveland faced in 2025.
There are a bunch of playoff implications tied to this series.
First of all, the winner of the series will emerge as the leader of the division. And the winner of the Central will have a good shot at earning a first-round playoff bye as the AL's No. 2 seed.
There's also the tiebreaker between the two teams. The White Sox hold a 6-4 lead in the season series with the Guardians, meaning they need to win just one game here to clinch the tiebreaker. The Guardians would need a sweep to do so.
And then there's the AL Wild Card race. The pressure is on both the White Sox and Guardians to win this series, because the team trailing in the division will be thrown into a wide-open competition for the third and final Wild Card spot.
The Guardians currently hold that spot, but they're just one game ahead of the Blue Jays and two ahead of the Rangers. There's no guarantee that the second-place AL Central finisher will make the playoffs.
