The Tampa Bay Rays are doing it. They are actually doing it.

That was my lead in sentence to the series preview on Thursday when the Rays were getting set to take on the Cleveland Guardians. Now, the Rays will need to win nearly every matchup from this point onward in order to have any hope of reaching the postseason after dropping three of four to Cleveland.

It will generally take around 87 wins to reach the playoffs; for the Rays to reach that plateau they’ll have to win at least 16 of their next 19 games, a .842 winning percentage. So at least there’s still a chance.

As for the actual standings, the Rays are 71-72, 4.5 games back of the Wild Card and have three teams between them and the Seattle Mariners.

Now the Rays schedule has them spending a week in Chicago where they’ll take on the south siders and north siders over a six game stretch starting with the White Sox. Chicago took two of three from Tampa Bay following the All-Star break but currently are the worst team in the American League with a record of 55-89.

The Rays will get to see former top prospect Curtis Mead with his new team; the Aussie infielder is hitting .274/.324/.337 with 0 HR for Chicago since being traded for Adrian Houser at the deadline. The White Sox have a roster filled with slightly above replacement level players and a budding core that could propel them to success in the near future. Colson Montgomery has been excellent over 53 games (128 wRC+ | 2.0 fWAR) as has Kyle Teel over 62 games (131 wRC+ | 1.8 fWAR). Those two players are the key to future success for Chicago.

The pitching is a mess and it is what’s currently holding the White Sox back from being more respectable. The staff is currently led by Shane Smith, who has turned in a solid season. Mike Vasil and Brandon Eisert, two players the Rays had on their 40-man roster entering spring training, are a pair of arms the White Sox use in high leverage situations. Jordan Leasure has taken over the closing duties.

Probable pitchers are projected by FanGraphs

Tuesday, September 9th
7:40 pm EDT

RHP Adrian Houser vs RHP Yoendrys Gomez

Wednesday, September 10th
7:40 pm EDT

RHP Ryan Pepiot vs RHP Sean Burke

Thursday, September 11th
2:10 pm EDT

LHP Ian Seymour vs RHP Shane Smith