There’s Nothing Like September In The American League

Well, Pope Leo gave it a hell of a go, we'll give him that. The former Father Bob, or something, kept the Chicago White Sox in first place in the American League Central for 73 consecutive days, or at least supervised their work well enough to keep them there. The team gave fans souvenir pope hats, and then just kept on giving. Given how unholy the White Sox have been in recent years, the presence atop even this blighted division was hard to believe. As the Cleveland Guardians made their annual September push and the lead got narrower, it got only more so. But the White Sox have provided, and on Wednesday even offered them their own prodigal son, the spectacularly traveled Tommy Pham. He has already been released by two different teams this year and was sold to the White Sox by a third, but after Pham literally cornered general manager Chris Getz in an elevator after Tuesday's game and all but shook the GM by the eyelids to get himself activated from the injured list, he delivered a three-run homer off a thigh-high curve ball from Cleveland's best pitcher, Parker Messick, to put the Sox ahead in Wednesday's vital game, 3-2. At that point, Leo must have figured that any help more divinely inspired than that might resemble game-fixing, and stepped away—and soon enough, he found out that this is the American League, where no power is higher than the mean. Within an inning and a half, Cleveland's profoundly whelming Petey Halpin aired out a 3-1 sinker from White Sox lefty Sean Newcomb for his own three-run homer; prior to that, Halpin had been 1-for-35 against lefties this year. Cleveland held on to win, 6-3.

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