White Sox fans: Let's talk about our feelings with 25 games to go

Maybe you're feeling optimistic after the White Sox rallied from a 4-0 deficit to defeat the Seattle Mariners, 9-6, on Wednesday. If so, that's cool.

Or maybe you're feeling pessimistic because, after all, the Sox are only one game over .500 (69-68) on Sept. 7, and they haven't looked like a playoff team all season. If so, that's also fine.

You can be whatever kind of fan you want to be. But me personally, my tendency is to look at the math and let that inform my view.

With 25 games to go, the White Sox are tied for second place with the Minnesota Twins, two games behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.

Can that deficit be overcome? Of course. Is it a good bet? Ehh, not sure about that.

The Guardians are 70-65 with 27 games left on their schedule. For the sake of argument, let's say they go 14-13 the rest of the way and finish 84-78. Seems like a plausible scenario, right?

Keep in mind that Cleveland leads the season series with the Sox, 9 games to 6, which means the tiebreaker goes to the Guardians. If Cleveland wins 84 games, then the Sox must win 85, or no playoffs.

The Sox are 69-68, so that means they would have to go 16-9 in their remaining 25 games to reach 85 wins. Mathematically possible? You bet, but it will require the Sox to sustain a stretch of winning baseball over a period of weeks -- something they've had trouble doing all year. They've had good weeks here and there, but they've been alternating winning and losing months and haven't had much consistency.

And that's assuming Cleveland doesn't do better than 14-13. They could do better; they could do worse. I'm just taking a reasonable guess.

Playoff odds have been on my mind today because the Sox have invoiced their fans for postseason tickets. Money is due by Sept. 20, and I find that date interesting -- it's the first day of a three-game series against the Guardians. That series will be the final matchup between Chicago and Cleveland this season, and it could decide the division.

So, Sox brass wants to know whether fans are in or out before we know the results of that critical series. Typical, because the Sox know if they lose that series, nobody will pay the playoff invoice, and then they won't be able to keep our money (without interest) over the offseason. 

For those who are not educated in this process, any money that goes toward playoff games that don't happen gets credited toward season tickets for the following season. If you demand a refund, you lose your seat location for next year.

Yeah, it's a dirty trick, so that makes this decision about whether to pay the invoice an important one.

Right now, my thought is that I'm not going to pay unless the Sox are either tied or ahead in the division by Sept. 20. That will require a hot streak over the next two weeks. So, this team needs to put up or shut up now. The schedule is favorable -- four at Oakland, two vs. Colorado, a makeup game at Cleveland and three at Detroit -- leading into Sept. 20.

The Sox probably need to win seven or eight of those 10. The margin for error is slim. Those are my feelings right now.