Loss Leaders
Anatomy of a Baseball Debacle
The Major League Baseball team (kind of) that plays on the south side of Chicago lost 101 games a year ago, a wretched season by any standard. Who knew that the White Sox were just getting started? They play their games at Guaranteed Rate Field, where they just completed an 0-10 homestand and where there should be a movement to rename the place Guaranteed Loss. OK, that’s a cheap shot, but the Sox have spent more than five months staking their ignominious claim to such jokes and insults.
The Sox, you see, are on the brink of making the sort of history that you never want to make. After beating the Orioles in Camden Yards Wednesday night, ending a 12-game losing streak, they have a record of 32-109. They are now heavy favorites to become the worst team in the annals of modern baseball, a distinction owned (for the moment, anyway) by the team of my youth, the 1962 New York Mets, who were managed by the great Casey Stengel and finished their first year of existence with a record of 40-120, a season chronicled in a wonderful book by Jimmy Breslin called Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?
While other baseball fans are concerning themselves with playoff runs and postseason prospects, White Sox supporters have had a box seat for a slow-moving baseball funeral since the club opened the season losing 22 of their first 25 games. They have had losing streaks of 21 and 14 games, and the recent 12-gamer, the three longest slides in the big leagues this year. The Sox were officially eliminated from playoff contention on Aug. 17, nine days after their record fell to 28-89 and GM Chris Getz put manager Pedro Grifol out of his misery, turning things over to Grady Sizemore. A former All-Star with the Cleveland Indians who hit 33 homers and stole 38 bases in 2008 and won a Gold Glove on top of it, Sizemore is, by all accounts, a standup guy who is trying as hard as he can to stay positive.
Reporters asked him what his message to his players was when he took over.
“Tell them this is an opportunity to reset, to put everything behind us starting today. Not focus so much on the results but the process and getting better each day. Try to play together and have fun and the normal cliches you hear throughout your career when things aren’t going good.
“You can still go out there and compete and have fun against the best teams in the league. We’re not going to hand it in every night.”
The White Sox, a team that, almost unfathomably, won 93 games and the AL Central three years ago, try their hardest to win. They are just extremely short on good pitchers and good hitters, not a good combination in any league. Their team batting average is .220, worse than every other club in baseball not named the Seattle Mariners (.217). They have scored the fewest runs in the majors (431) by a margin of almost 100. Their OPS of .614 is more than .50 points below everyone else. Gavin Sheets, their rightfielder, has the highest batting average of any of the regulars - .244. The Sox pitchers? Their combined ERA is 4.87, again second worst in baseball, behind the Rockies, who play in a launching pad. Earlier this week, the White Sox lost a record 20th straight start made by righthander Chris Flexen, who is 2-14 on the year. Fellow starter Michael Soroka is 0-10 with a 5.23.
But enough of the dreary data. The 2024 season was encapsulated in a single game in Baltimore on Tuesday night, a 9-0 loss.Already down 3-0, the Sox had a runner picked off second in the top of the second. Then, in the bottom half of the inning, their starting pitcher, Nick Nastrini, walked five Orioles before Sizemore yanked him. The Sox might’ve gotten out of it, but third baseman Miguel Vargas collided with leftfielder Andrew Benintendi on a popup to short left, allowing three runs to score. Later, Sizemore and Benitendi were ejected and the Sox messed up another popup. The pop that emptied the bases ball was hit by Eloy Jimenez, who had the good fortune to be traded from the White Sox to the contending Orioles just five weeks earlier. Vargas, who was injured on the play, experienced the reverse karma, starting the year with the Dodgers before going to Chicago in a three-team, eight-player deal at the trade deadline.
Can you say Outhouse to the Penthouse?
Owner Jerry Reinsdorf had his glorious run with the Jordan-era Bulls, but now, at 88, seems utterly out of touch with how bleak things have become, even as he adheres to the billionaire playbook and hopes to extort a new ballpark to replace Guaranteed Loss, er, Rate, Three years ago, the Sox had a stud pitching staff headlined by Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, Carlos Rodon and closer Liam Hendriks. All are gone, whether through free agency or ill-fated trades made by former executive VP Ken Williams and GM Rick Hahn. To hear many Sox fans tell it, Reinsdorf couldn’t even get a play-by-play hire right. He replaced beloved former announcer Jason Benetti with John Schriffen, whose unflagging boosterism of a historically bad club has not played well. When the Sox ended their 21-game losing streak, this was his call:
“This could do it. Out to left field. Coming in, Benintendi — and the streak is over! After 21 ‘L’s’ in a row, the White Sox come to the West Coast and get their first win in a long time! Say it with me! South Side! Stand up!”
The White Sox need to play over .500 baseball and finish the year 11-10 to avoid losing 120 games and tying the Mets. Reinsdorf might have a better chance of being elected mayor of Chicago.
There is some good news, however. The Sox have no shot at equaling the Cleveland Spiders’ record of baseball futility, set in 1899. The Spiders, in their 11th season, went 20-134 and then closed shop for good.
Sounds like they need to go back to basics and try to enjoy playing baseball again. It’s hard to lose all the time.
Time to reread Jimmy Breslin's "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?"