Miguel Vargas had two hits and two RBIs, Kyle Teel homered and David Sandlin delivered six strong innings as the visiting Chicago White Sox routed the Kansas City Royals 9-1 on Thursday to clinch an American League playoff berth.
Chicago (82-77) is back in the AL postseason for the first time since 2021 after enduring three straight 100-loss seasons.
Fueled by an early barrage against Royals right-hander Randy Dobnak, the White Sox moved to a half-game behind the Central Division-leading Cleveland Guardians, who were set to play in Boston later Thursday. Chicago holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Cleveland and is 3½ games up on the Texas Rangers for the third and final AL wild-card berth.
The White Sox scored three runs in each of the first two innings against Kansas City (68-91). Vargas and Tristan Peters contributed RBI singles in the first inning while Vargas added another run-scoring single in the second.
Sandlin, a rookie righty, pitched comfortably with the lead. He worked around Bobby Witt Jr.’s one-out double to escape the first inning in 17 pitches and needed 85 pitches to complete his outing.
Sandlin (3-2) yielded one run and five hits with zero walks against seven strikeouts.
Dobnak (3-5) allowed six runs (four earned) and six hits in 1 1/3 innings. He had one walk and one strikeout while throwing a wild pitch and committing an error on a pickoff attempt.
Teel reached reliever Alex Lange for a solo shot to start the fourth and Peters had an RBI forceout later in the inning.
Salvador Perez homered leading off the bottom of the fourth to bring the Royals to within 8-1. It marked Perez’s 20th round-tripper this season, his sixth consecutive campaign reaching that plateau.
John Rave and Jason Isbel had two hits apiece for Kansas City. Witt Jr. has reached base in 21 consecutive games.
Sam Antonacci, Chase Meidroth, Braden Montgomery and Teel joined Vargas with two-hit efforts for Chicago. Andrew Benintendi and Peters also had two RBIs.
Chicago won the season series from Kansas City 9-4.
The White Sox have won four of five while the Royals have lost six of seven.