The White Sox Have Lost 20 Straight, How Are They Doing It?

The White Sox just finished up a weekend set in Minneapolis where they dropped their 18th, 19th and 20th consecutive games. As they were boarding a plane to Oakland to embark on possibly their next huge embarrassing failure, I was thinking about how they got here. How did they get to the point that this team is just a few more boners from history. Bad teams lose a lot, this is a bad team. However, it takes a special level of badness to do what they are doing. Let’s check it out.

How Are the White Sox Losing This Much?

L is NOT for Love. WARNING, the data I am pulling for White Sox futility actually includes a victory, as the last win for this motley crew was on July 10th as the first game of a double header at home vs the Twins. They summarily lost game 2, which is where the information would truly start, but I am too lazy to bifurcate it, so bite me!

Historically Bad Offense Being Worse Than Normal

The offense has been putrid. The White Sox offense on the whole for 2024 is on pace to set records for futility, but this has been even worse. Since July 10th, they have a 55 wRC+ and a slash line of .196 / .246 / .313. They’ve score 51 runs in those 21 games (remember the data includes the last win). Heinous. The proverbial pile of biggest contributors below.

I’m going to isolate Luis Robert Jr. Not to pick on him and not to denote he’s the only one sucking it up, because let’s be honest, this whole page is a pile of suck (except for Andrew Benintendi, surprisingly), but because he’s your superstar and the superstar has the responsibility to put the team on his shoulders here and there and get you out of a funk like this. No such luck here. Luis’ ~44% K-Rate is untenable. He’s very clearly been working on his approach all season (ie, trying to be more patient and take walks), but it has fucked with his performance, a lot. Especially during this streak of the season.

One thing, let’s disspell that this is some sort of effort issue or that he’s checked out. Luis’ defense is still top notch and closer inspection of his stats during this horrid losing streak will show you that he’s 8 out of 9 stealing bases. So when he does get on base, he’s making some shit happen. Alright, enough picking on Luis. I’ll just mention one more guy.

What About the Pitching?

Yea, the Pitching has also sucked to high heaven. During the streak, the White Sox bullpen is sporting a hilarious 6.80 ERA (funny that the first place Phillies are right there with them at 6.63, during this stretch, but I digress). They are walking 12.3% of hitters contributing to a 1.74 WHIP over that period. The main and most fun contributors to this cause are below.

I had been wondering why John Brebbia didn’t get traded at the deadline. I don’t wonder that anymore. It is weird how he, Steven Wilson and Jared Shuster are all having bad home run luck at the same time (LOL!). The 19% and 15% groundball rates respectively for Brebbia and Wilson got me howling. The “Chris Getz Bullpen on a Budget” has been one of the greatest dark comedies of our lifetimes. Wait though, I can’t just blame the bullpen. The formerly superlative starting pitching kicks in their fair share as well.

Drew Thorpe got nuked in back to back starts after looking like Greg Maddux for a month. The White Sox haven’t won a Chris Flexen start since we were arguing about Justin Fields. And finally big daddy Garrett Crochet has come back down to earth. It’s really been a team effort to get this thing to where it is today.

The Most Impressive Thing About the Streak

To me, the most impressive thing about this streak is that there really haven’t been that many close calls. They should’ve won that Monday, July 29th game against the Royals, when Bobby Witt Jr. did medieval things to them, but otherwise, they have just been getting the doors blown off day in and day out.

It’s so hard to lose this many games in a row, but it’s even harder to lose them in the fashion the White Sox have where the games aren’t particularly close. You are rarely getting to the 7th or 8th inning and thinking, WE MIGHT WIN THIS ONE! We had a lot of that feeling earlier in the year when the bullpen was blowing up win after win, but during the streak, it’s mostly getting boat raced and l0lzing at what dumb stuff the White Sox will do.

This will end eventually (I promise), but until it does, let’s soak it up. This is a rare moment of historic futility and it’s to be remembered, possibly even cherished.

-BeefLoaf