White Sox are getting good practice for the playoffs as they face a string of top pitchers

Dallas Keuchel threw down the gauntlet in February at the start of spring training in Glendale, Ariz.

“If it’s anything short of the playoffs, then it’s a failure,” the newly signed Chicago White Sox pitcher said of the 2020 season.

The Sox clinched that playoff spot last week, ensuring they would not be considered failures.

But now comes the hard part, trying to nail down the American League Central and secure a higher seed and a wild-card series on the South Side.

As expectations for the Sox rose incrementally during this pandemic-shortened season, the pressure to live up to the hype increased as well. And heading into Wednesday’s game in Cleveland with four losses in five games since the clinching, it looked a lot like the Sox had inexplicably taken their foot off the gas.

First baseman Jose Abreu conceded Wednesday it was no mirage.

“From my point of view, I agree (with that),” Abreu said through an interpreter. "We relaxed a little bit, and that’s why we got caught in this moment. But like I said before, for good things to happen, you need bad things to push you. This is probably not the way we wanted to do it, but this is the time we’re living in and it’s preparing us to be stronger and a way better team.

“I’ve said it before, no matter what this moment is, we’re on the right track. I truly believe this moment is making us stronger, it’s making us better as a team. And it’s preparing us better for the postseason. I believe these final five games are going to be different and the postseason is going to be good.”

Abreu can’t be blamed for the collective lapse in focus. He remains the AL MVP favorite, though Indians slugger Jose Ramirez is making a late surge and began the day with a major-league-leading 3.2 WAR, according to fangraphs.com.

Abreu was second in the AL with a 2.8 WAR, though he had more home runs than Ramirez (19 to 17) and led the league with 56 RBIs, well ahead of Ramirez’s 44.

It may come down to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters and whether they prefer old-school stats to new-age analytics. And it also could depend on whether the Sox can hold off the Minnesota Twins and Indians, who were both in the rearview mirror and gaining steam.

“I don’t want anybody panicking, I don’t want anybody feeling like they’ve got to prove something,” manager Rick Renteria said Wednesday on a teleconference. “They’ve just got to go out and play the game. You control the things you can control. I can’t preach that and then not do that.”

The Sox can’t control the fact they had to face AL Cy Young Award shoo-in Shane Bieber on Wednesday night, then the dominant, pizza-loving bad boy Zach Plesac on Thursday. And there’s no hiding from the always intense City Series against the Cubs, who have another Cy Young candidate, Yu Darvish, on tap for Friday, followed by Jon Lester and Jose Quintana.

If the Sox hope to get far in the postseason, these are the kind of pitchers they have to beat. Might as well get some practice.

In spite of having only two consistent starters in Keuchel and Lucas Giolito, the Sox took a 3.54 ERA into Wednesday’s game, third in the league behind the Indians (2.99) and Twins (3.47). Dylan Cease has walked 12 in 7 1/4 u2154 innings over his last two starts. Dane Dunning has been a late-season find but has only 31 career innings under his belt. And Reynaldo Lopez still is considered suspect despite a recent resurgence.

The good news?

The Sox might be able to go bullpenning in the postseason, bringing in their mostly dependable relievers early and often in games not started by Keuchel or Giolito. As catcher Yasmani Grandal pointed out, the playoffs are a different animal in the modern era.

“You got the stuff to be here, we don’t need you for nine innings. We need you for five,” Grandal said last week. "That’s pretty much what playoff baseball is — five and dive — and then you throw your pen out there. If you are rolling, you go six or seven. But you are not thinking of having the starter going nine.

“We’ve seen in the past when that happened, what the outcome of that has been. You think about the Red Sox with Pedro Martinez in Yankee Stadium (in the 2003 ALCS) rolling through seven, and all of a sudden eighth or ninth inning, the Yankees come and get to him.”

Five and dive is doable, but only if rookies Codi Heuer, Matt Foster and Garrett Crochet step up and Evan Marshall and Alex Colome are healthy. Colome had back spasms Tuesday that kept him from coming back out for the fateful 10th inning, and Renteria wouldn’t say before Wednesday’s game if he was available. Asked if Crochet, who threw 102 mph on Tuesday, could close for the Sox, Renteria wouldn’t bite.

“Depending on what the situation is and what our circumstance is, obviously if we deem it appropriate that could happen,” he said.

A rookie named Bobby Jenks came out of the blue in 2005 to close during the Sox’s championship season. Deja vu all over again?

So the season winds down and the plot thickens.

After all we’ve been through in 2020, would you want it any other way?

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