It was one other day and one other loss for the Chicago White Sox, however there was one thing further particular about Sunday’s defeat.
Sunday’s loss, an ordinary 13-7 defeat by the hands of the Minnesota Twins, marked their twentieth in a row — a pleasant spherical quantity to provide this franchise the nationwide stage it deserves. No group had misplaced 20 in a row for the reason that 1988 Baltimore Orioles, who misplaced 21 occasions in succession.
In Chicago, we’re used to the White Sox shedding. It’s form of their factor. However 20 in a row? We’re previous the purpose of embarrassment right here.
In Chicago, we’ve been laser-focused on the Sox being on observe to interrupt the 1962 Mets’ modern-day file of 120 losses, however now we’re on the level the place they might surpass the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies’ file of 23 straight defeats.
Infamy, thy title is White Sox.
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On NBC Sports activities Chicago’s beloved, painfully sincere postgame present Sunday, host Chuck Garfien was rattling off some acquainted insult statistics.
“Twentieth loss in a row, 40 video games again, 1-12 in opposition to Minnesota,” he mentioned. “I may go all day on this, 1-12 in opposition to Kansas Metropolis …”
That’s when Frank Thomas interrupted him. Thomas is, after all, the best participant in franchise historical past and a semi-regular co-host on the present. As a hitter, Thomas was a stickler for particulars. On this present, too, he needed it to be correct.
“Sixty video games below .500,” he mentioned. “Underneath. Sixty video games.”
That’s when Garfien realized his mistake. With the loss, the White Sox had dropped to 27-87. Speak about a Huge Damage.
“Sixty video games,” he mentioned. “I mentioned they had been 40 video games below .500.”
With somewhat theatrical flourish, he slammed his stack of papers on the carpet.
“They’re 60 video games below .500!” Garfien yelled, earlier than settling again in his chair.
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That’s when Ozzie Guillen, Garfien’s on a regular basis co-host and the group’s World Sequence-winning supervisor, introduced up the stat that I got here up with not too long ago: In case you take out the Sox’s two franchise-record shedding streaks, they nonetheless have the worst file in baseball.
See, it’s one factor to be the worst group in baseball in a singular season. Somebody has to do it, in any case. However add to {that a} 14-game shedding streak and a 20-game (and counting) shedding streak, and it makes them a contender for the worst baseball group in fashionable historical past. A laughingstock for the ages.
The ’62 Mets had been an enlargement group with a sure sense of caprice. They’d Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Casey Stengel. Jimmy Breslin’s guide, “Can’t Anyone Right here Play This Recreation?” was a traditional, and 7 years later, the Amazin’ Mets had been world champs.
However the White Sox have been round since 1901. Their franchise file for losses is 106, which ought to be eclipsed earlier than Labor Day. It’s been a great distance down from the rebuild that was purported to carry a number of championship parades to Chicago.
Two years after the Sox gained 93 video games and the AL Central, they hit what we thought was all-time low. That was final 12 months after they misplaced 101 video games and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf made the transfer none of us noticed coming by firing his longtime front-office duo of Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn. Reinsdorf promised a fast turnaround behind new normal supervisor Chris Getz. Nobody believed Jerry then as a result of why would they? He has no belief left with the followers, not in any case these years.
For some purpose — OK, cash — the group saved supervisor Pedro Grifol, whose managing file is at the moment 88-188. However he’s been a useless supervisor strolling all season, and after the commerce deadline handed, the main focus rapidly turned to his job standing. It nearly appears merciless that Getz and Reinsdorf haven’t fired Grifol but. Possibly they’re ready for him to win a recreation so he can exit on a excessive observe.
“Meaning Pedro is 100 video games below .500 since he received the job,” Guillen mentioned. “Hoo, hoo boy.”
Ozzie is having an existential disaster on the Postgame Present proper now pic.twitter.com/5eCUlirBgI
— White Sox Speak (@NBCSWhiteSox) August 4, 2024
Guillen, who led the Sox to their World Sequence victory in 2005, mentioned he must see a psychologist as a result of he’s been extra indignant and unhappy than standard these days. The explanation?
“I don’t assume I used to be that unhealthy a supervisor, however they picked Pedro in entrance of me,” Guillen mentioned to laughter on the present.
After Tony La Russa stepped down following well being points in 2022, Guillen was given a token interview for the open job, the one which he gave away in 2011. Guillen has needed this job again for years, however the earlier regime of Williams and Hahn didn’t need him again they usually had no intention of hiring him two years in the past. I agreed with them however solely as a result of the group wants to maneuver ahead, not backward.
Guillen added: “I swear to God on this, when Rick Hahn referred to as me and mentioned I don’t have the job, he mentioned, ‘We discovered the subsequent Ozzie Guillen.’”
Whereas Hahn was making an attempt to go with Grifol, Guillen, who went 678-617 (.524) in eight seasons, certain doesn’t admire the comparability now. However I guess he’s getting a kick out of how unhealthy the Sox are with out him.
Numerous followers need Guillen to instantly substitute Grifol if and when the group fires him, however why would he need that headache? If I had been any of the coaches on Grifol’s workers, I wouldn’t wish to take the job, both. You don’t wish to need to reply questions on this group, this season, twice a day.
Now, in what could possibly be his waning days within the job, Grifol took a while to do what quite a lot of failed coaches and managers do in a Reinsdorf regime: kiss as much as the boss.
“I’ve mentioned this earlier than and I’m going to say it once more,” Grifol mentioned in line with the Solar-Occasions and Chicago Tribune. “This will get taken out of context and someway it will get rotated again and again, how individuals wish to understand it. Jerry’s a winner, OK? He’s an absolute winner. He’s a competitor. No, he’s not content material. Who’s?”
Folks have humorous definitions of what makes somebody a winner, particularly after they work for a perennial loser.
The Bulls are below .500 since their precise, absolute winner, Michael Jordan, retired in 1998. The Sox have made the postseason simply seven occasions in Reinsdorf’s 44 years of possession. The 2005 playoffs had been the one time they gained a sequence, and 2020 and 2021 had been the one years they reached the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.
However Grifol is talking to an viewers of 1, whilst he’s left dangling.
If the Sox get swept in Oakland this week, they might break the ’61 Phillies file at house Friday in opposition to the Cubs. The environment will probably be someplace between funereal and riotous.
I can’t think about Grifol is on the highest step for that one. How may you do this to him? How may you insult the followers’ intelligence by conserving him round?
It’s an terrible state of affairs for everybody, however this isn’t simply on Grifol, although he’s actually culpable for making a foul state of affairs worse.
GO DEEPER
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Whereas he’s targeted on build up the farm system, Getz tried so as to add some protection to final 12 months’s slapdash fielding group to make the major-league product extra palatable, however he failed in a really public style. The core hitters who’re all the time harm had been, shock, injured once more early within the season (Yoán Moncada has performed solely 11 video games and is within the group’s prime 10 for bWAR), and the season fell off the rails with a 3-22 begin. The beginning pitching, no less than, has been stable, and Getz and his workers have bolstered the group’s pitching outlook.
That’s all a part of the upside to shedding: It permits a entrance workplace the runway to enhance a company, generally pretty rapidly. That was the plan after the 2016 season, and it labored till it didn’t. However in his first commerce deadline, Getz’s strikes had been extensively panned, and new baseball guidelines are limiting the Sox to the tenth decide in subsequent 12 months’s draft.
Cash goes to be a difficulty. The Sox are having one other attendance decline, and their TV broadcasts, which had been a spotlight for the group, are actually considered the worst in baseball. The group’s cope with NBC Sports activities Chicago is ending and a brand new RSN (in partnership with the Bulls and Blackhawks) will debut this fall.
It’s going to be an extended highway again to respectability. At the least there’s nonetheless the TV pre- and postgame exhibits, which had been as unfailingly sincere and significant as ever Sunday. These exhibits, the Campfire Milkshake and the pitching within the minors are the one issues the group has going for it.
The White Sox lose and lose and lose, they usually’ve gotten a lot apply, they now is likely to be the perfect to ever do it.
(Photograph of Nicky Lopez reacting to Sunday’s loss: David Berding / Getty Pictures)
