Any way you slice it, the White Sox playoff hopes look pretty good right now. I don't know if I would go as high as the 60-80% in the linked simulations, but they clearly--in its most non-sarcastic form--have the best chance of anyone in the division to make the playoffs.
They stretched their division lead to 4.5 with a resounding victory over the Twins on Saturday, reaching a high water mark of 9 games over .500. The Tigers and Indians, who sit 7.5 and 10 games back, respectively, as I type, each lost a starting pitcher for the year (and part of next). I could go on, but I'll just link to Scott Long's notes instead.
Pre-season, I thought the Sox would be better, a better than .500 club, but far behind the two suspected powerhouses of the division. I don't know if anyone, well anyone not wearing SouljaBoi's most rose colored glasses, could have predicted the complete ineptitude of the supposed Big Two in the division.
The Sox have generally played well this season, and the rest of their division currently a combined 31 games below .500, yet I only have one foot on the bandwagon. They haven't hit well, though tonight is not exactly the best night to write that, and they are one of the shallowest playoff hopeful teams in all of baseball. They'll need to remain extraordinarily healthy to keep the division safely at bay. The next 11 games, however, provide the Sox an opportunity to really put some distance between themselves and the rest of the Central.
Saturday's victory over the Twins knocked them down to a .500 record, which means the Sox don't face an above .500 team until the Cubs series in two weeks. They have 9 games against the Tigers (11 games under), Rockies (14 games under) and Pirates (4 games under), against whom they can hopefully build a nice working margin on the division. If they can really run off a nice string of games--I'm thinking 8-3--I'll put that second foot squarely on the bandwagon.