21 strikeouts: The White Sox hit a historic wall

The Cleveland Guardians won their division series last night against the Chicago White Sox. They've advanced to the American League Championship Series.

There are only four teams left in the running right now.

Even though many people wanted to see the White Sox advance to the next round, we can all agree that the team can be proud of its season.

To go from a 102-loss season to coming within a few runs of making the playoffs is sensational.

Everyone in the organization can be proud.

But does that mean everything is perfect? No, of course not. There are still areas that need work.

Among them: batters striking out.

Yesterday, their 21 strikeouts set a record (including the regular season and playoffs) for the most strikeouts in a nine-inning game in history.

The regular-season record is 20. The postseason record was 19—again, for a nine-inning game. It was set by… the 2026 White Sox.

It happened last Wednesday.

In five games, the White Sox struck out a total of 75 times. For a five-game series, that's a record in history.

The other three times a team has struck out more than 75 times in a single series, those series lasted seven games.

It's no surprise that when Colson Montgomery and Munetaka Murakami are on your team, it's bound to be a strikeout fest.

Montgomery has struck out 227 times this season, a franchise record. Murakami would have held the record if he hadn't missed any games; he has 196 strikeouts in just 127 at-bats.

Chase Meidroth (141), Miguel Vargas (126), and Andrew Benintendi (112) are the other Chicago hitters who recorded at least 100 strikeouts this season.

In the playoffs, it looked like this: They struck out 96 times in seven games—nearly 14 per game.

The Braves (63) are the only other team with more than 50 since the playoffs began.

Acquiring Munetaka Murakami transformed the team, and the guy comes with his flaws. But strikeouts are clearly an area the White Sox need to work on this winter.

Created by humans, assisted by AI.