Losing more games than any team in major league history – a distinction the Chicago White Sox will earn sometime in the next three weeks – is nothing to which anyone aspires. Nor is it anything these White Sox have not actively tried to prevent.
Instead, it has been a battle of withering resolve vs. on-field reality and it is abundantly clear which side has prevailed.
Any hopes of contention ended tacitly after 22 losses in their first 25 games, officially when they were mathematically eliminated Aug. 17, a date more associated with midsummer dreams than autumn reality.
Any hint of stability ended when they mercifully fired manager Pedro Grifol on Aug. 8, after he piloted them to a 28-89 record, only for interim manager Grady Sizemore to follow with a 3-20 mark with a roster further desiccated by the trade deadline.
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And so, for a team that’s 31-109, that’s 7-48 in its last 55 games, that’s a worst-in-history 4-38 since the All-Star break, that’s been outscored by more than 300 runs and that will shatter the 1962 Mets’ record of 120 losses unless they can break character and win 11 of their last 22 games, the team fight has given way to individual battles of will.
Even for the losingest pitcher on the losingest team in modern history.
“I think the biggest takeaway is being able to look myself in the mirror and say that I was pretty diligent in my routine. That I continued to work every day and that every time I took the mound, I was putting my best foot forward and ready to compete,” says right-hander Chris Flexen, who broke a modern major league record Monday when the White Sox lost their 20th consecutive game in which he started.
“Sometimes that’s half the battle itself. The biggest thing is you’re never out of the fight, really. Even amidst your struggles, you have to continue to fight.”
Yet night after night, it’s never a fair fight.
Chicago is last in the American League with a 4.90 ERA, last in the major leagues in walks issued and walk rate, OPS (.615), runs scored and home runs. And game after game, the stat sheet is vividly illustrated on the diamond.
Tuesday night, White Sox pitchers loaded the bases in four of the first five innings against the Baltimore Orioles, allowed 16 baserunners before recording 15 outs and lost 9-0, getting outscored 22-3 in two games against a first-place team.
It was loss No. 109, and there’s a strong likelihood the one after 109 was less than 24 hours away. The White Sox must fight those feelings of doom, yet they’re understood with greater clarity for those who have escaped the South Side.
“It is tough, because you don’t feel any motivation sometimes,” says Orioles outfielder Eloy Jiménez, traded to Baltimore from Chicago on July 30. “Even when you want to motivate – ‘Oh, we cannot lose today’ – it is a little bit tough. I hope things get better for them next year. Because that was the team I grew up with, came up with. And it was a good team.
“But these last two years have been a real struggle. I hope everything goes better for them next year.”
Yet the remains of this season linger. Tuesday, Sizemore earned another rite of passage as a first-time manager, earning his first ejection, joined moments later by veteran outfielder Andrew Benintendi.
The White Sox allowed three runs to score when third baseman Miguel Vargas – acquired from the Dodgers at the trade deadline – crashed into Benintendi after the left fielder tried calling him off Jiménez’s fly ball, allowing three runs to score. Three innings later, another popup in the exact same spot landed between three fielders.
It is enough to compel even the freshest-faced manager to seek an early shower.
“We just want the right calls to be made,” says Sizemore, who was never ejected in his 10-year playing career. “The wrong calls were being made, for both teams. I get it: The game’s getting out of control and we’re down a lot. But our guys are still hitting. They’re not trying to give up their at-bats.”
Even as 31-108 gives way to 31-109.
‘Most days, it doesn’t seem real’
Perhaps riding out this ignominious season would sting more if Sizemore saw it coming. Just a year ago, he was not working in the game, until former Cleveland teammate Josh Barfield recommended him for a job with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ front office.
With the club at its league-mandated staff limit, the only gig available was a $15-an-hour internship under GM Mike Hazen. Sizemore, 41, accepted.
Getting back in the game enabled him to follow Barfield, hired as an assistant GM in Chicago, to the White Sox for a job on Grifol’s coaching staff this spring. By the first week of August, the manager’s office was his.
“Most days, it doesn’t feel real. It still feels like it’s not happening or I’m dreaming of the whole experience,” says Sizemore, a three-time All-Star with Cleveland who produced a 33-homer, 38-steal season in 2008. “But it’s been a fun ride. I’ve really enjoyed everything that comes along with it – working with the guys, working with the staff, competing every night and trying to embrace it and have fun with it.
“I was completely surprised. I had no feeling or indication of anything. I didn’t really know what to make of it. It felt like a dream or a joke at the time.”
Injuries – most notably microfracture knee surgery that cost him the 2012 and 2013 seasons – ended his career after 2015, when he was just 32. Yet he was a dynamic player in his day, one his current charges remember, and his low-key demeanor seems suited for the moment.
“A guy that everybody really respects,” says veteran pitcher Chad Kuhl. “Everybody respects the career he had, the person he is. It seems to carry over into his role. It seems like he’s the same guy. It’s been a smooth transition.”
For Sizemore, managing is, as he puts it, “as close as you can get to being back on the field without actually playing,” and thus it partially slakes his competitive thirst.
Yet Sizemore was placed in a peculiar spot come Aug. 7, with a historically bad team that a week earlier saw several of its last viable parts stripped at the trade deadline. The wins and losses would now go down on his record.
And he had little choice but to create the impression that this was a reboot, even if the personnel was the same – worse, even – than the group that produced a 28-89 mark to that point.
“Trying to put out the most positive message I could,” he says of his first days in the manager’s office. “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.”
All falls down
But that’s a challenge when the franchise, from even a 5,000-foot view, had long gone to pot. The industry consensus – that owner Jerry Reinsdorf rode and died for too long with club president Ken Williams and GM Rick Hahn – is now being borne out on the field.
It’s startling when you consider the club is just three years removed from a 93-win season and an AL Central title. Seven All-Stars – Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, Carlos Rodón, Reynaldo Lopez, Garrett Crochet and Liam Hendriks – dotted the pitching staff alone.
But as the bottom fell out in the second half of an 81-81 2022 season and a 101-loss ’23 campaign, all but Crochet are gone from that group of pitchers, and he’s very likely to be traded in the offseason.
Two years of losing – and dealing stars like Cease – have buttressed the farm system, now ranked eighth by Baseball America. Yet the club’s player development acumen remains an open question, most notably with top shortstop prospect Colson Montgomery stalled out at Class AAA.
Reinsdorf opted to promote first-year GM Chris Getz from within rather than fully clean house. Any Crochet trade will be the latest referendum on Getz after he dealt Cease in March, netting pitching prospect Drew Thorpe.
That won’t do this group any good as it fights ignominy. The White Sox have used a club-record 60 players this year – breaking last year’s mark of 56 – and the open auditions aren’t going any better. Tuesday’s game marked the fourth time since Aug. 4 they’ve issued nine walks in a game, as starter Nick Nastrini fell to 0-7.
Some numbers belie a little hard luck, though.
Take Flexen. His 5.36 ERA would be second-highest in the majors if he had three more innings pitched to qualify for the ERA title. Yet he’s a sturdy veteran starter who deserves a little better, particularly during a five-start stretch spanning June and July, when he posted a 3.64 ERA, and turned in four quality starts.
The White Sox lost all of them.
Of course they did: They also lead the majors with 31 blown saves and with 42 losses in games they’ve scored first. Yet there are no innocents in this clubhouse, which might strangely keep the group more cohesive than you’d imagine.
“Whether it be a tight ballgame or a blowout, we show up the next day ready to compete, ready to work. I think that’s been the biggest thing, to fight through,” says Flexen. “It’s not that it’s not there, but you try to get through the external distractions, put your best foot forward and continue to show up and compete and fight for each other.
“I think it helps unify a little more. Everyone’s struggling too, right? So we’re all in it together. The more we’re able to pull for each other and play competitive baseball, that’s what helps you try to get out of it at some point.”
And then someone like Travis Jankowski comes along.
The White Sox were trailing the Texas Rangers 4-3 with one out in the ninth inning on Aug. 28 when Andrew Vaughn clubbed a pitch deep to left field at Guaranteed Rate Park. A five-game losing streak was about to end in glorious fashion – on a walk-off home run.
Yet the 6-2 Jankowski extended his lanky frame over the fence, brought the ball back and robbed Vaughn. Jankowski called it a “once-in-a-lifetime play.”
The White Sox called it their 103rd loss, sixth in a row in a skid that’s still active, at 12 games. To go along with losing streaks of 21 and 14 games earlier in the season.
“Nothing stands out as bad as that,” says Flexen. “From the other side, unbelievable catch. But for us, struggling to have a moment to put a game away, and we get a three-run home run robbed from us to win a ballgame.”
And so it goes. These White Sox have 22 games left, after which more tinkering and trades and certainly some very mild free agent additions will occur, being that this team is years from contention. Sizemore’s future is also an open question, even as he feels, to some extent, that simply getting back in the game is a significant win.
For now, it’s a matter of mind over nearly two dozen games that don’t matter – save for avoiding a death march into the record books.
“I’ve been there. I’ve been on last-place teams. I’ve been on first-place teams, ones in between. There isn’t any situation these guys are going through that I haven’t lived or seen firsthand,” says Sizemore. “I feel like I can relate to them on that level.
“I think the beauty of this game is there’s always tomorrow. It’s a long season. It’s a grind. But there’s always something to play for. The only way to get better is to play together and play for the guy next to you.”
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