White Sox are streaking toward Bad Baseball History: How many games will they lose?

[Padres]

By Jayson Stark
Aug 5, 2024

It’s time for a word about the White Sox:

Helpppp!

Call me an alarmist, but I’m starting to worry they’re not going to make the playoffs.

They lost their 20th game in a row Sunday. They fell to 60 games under .500. And they’re making the ’62 Mets look like the ’98 Yankees. Outside of that, they’re living the dream.

It might be the 130-loss dream. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t special.

Chicago has seen a lot of bad baseball over the last century. It has never seen anything like this. Then again, it’s time to ask: Has anybody?

Let’s take a look at this mess. Somebody has to.

THE STREAK — It must be hard to lose 20 games in a row, because before these White Sox came along, only three teams had done it in the last 80 years — the ’61 Phillies (23 in a row), ’88 Orioles (21) and ’69 expansion Expos (20). The Expos’ franchise had existed for exactly 28 games when their streak started, so they barely count.

How long has it been since the White Sox won a game? It’s been so long (26 days) that going into Monday, 193 different pitchers had won a game since the last time the White Sox won one (July 10).

Heck, Dylan Cease has won four of them since then. His name might sound familiar — possibly because he was pitching for the White Sox as recently as spring training. Of this year.

Aaron Judge has reached base 55 times since the last time the White Sox won a game. Elly De La Cruz has had time to steal 13 bases in that span. (The White Sox have stolen 11.) And 56 pitchers have saved a game in that time when the White Sox were saving no games, which seems to be related to the fact that they were also winning no games.

It’s been 26 days, but who’s counting? It seems hard to go nearly four weeks without winning one measly baseball game, even when you have an All-Star break inserted into the middle of that. So I decided to take a look at just how hard it is.

The ’61 Phillies set the record for longest losing streak in the modern era (23). But even they never went 26 days without a win. They crammed their whole streak into 23 days.

The 1906 Boston Americans lost 20 in a row. But they only went 25 days between W’s.

So the modern, single-season record appears to be 29 days, by Coco Laboy’s ’69 Expos (20 in a row). I hear spring is lovely in Montreal. But it didn’t stop that team from having five games rained out during their streak.

So what about those 1988 Orioles? They’re the all-time champs here. They went 208 days in between games they won. But they were sneaky. They started their season with that 21-game losing streak. So they went from the previous Oct. 4 until April 29 without winning.

It was the White Sox who were the victims when those Orioles finally won, you know. Big mistake. The ’88 Orioles set the American League record for most losses in a row. And now the White Sox are one loss away from tying that record. It’s the circle of baseball life at its finest.

This thing has gone on for so long, in fact, that even the Bears had time to win a game — in all that time when the White Sox were winning no games. Is it impossible to think that the Bears could outwin the White Sox between now and Sept. 29? Oh, I think it’s very possible.

Along came the Spiders

As a big fan of the legendary 1899 Cleveland Spiders (attractive record: 20-134), I try to be as judicious as possible before I drop their name into the same sentence as any team of this era. But this just in:

I’m going there.

It’s hard not to. After all, when July ended, the 2024 White Sox found themselves — can this be an actual number? — 57 games under .500. And that seems not good.

The Yankees have been playing baseball for 122 seasons. You know how many times, in all those seasons, they have ever been 57 games under .500, at any point in any season? That would be never — not even in the last week of September.

But the 2024 White Sox (27-84) made it to 57 below sea level before August. And hard as I searched, I couldn’t find any other team that had ever submerged itself that far under .500 before flipping the calendar to August.

So I asked my friend Elijah Ackerman of MLB Network Research. He found the answer, all right. And it was — guess who? — those 1899 Spiders. Apparently, they were struggling, because they were a picturesque 15-74 at the time (59 under).

Before these White Sox got rolling, those Spiders used to be the only team in history to reach those depths before the end of July. Next closest was Pug Bennett’s 1907 Cardinals, who got to 54 under.

Buster Brown’s 1911 Boston Rustlers were 53 under. But in the last 100 years, only two teams — Choo-Choo Coleman’s 1962 Mets and Brandon Inge’s 2003 Tigers — even made it to 50 under in July.

Oops. Not anymore.

The good news for the White Sox is: I’m pretty sure it’s not possible for them to play worse after Aug. 1 than those Cleveland Spiders. That team got evicted from its home park, only played one home game the rest of the year and went 5-60 (seriously!) down the stretch.

It’s still mathematically possible for the White Sox to finish with more losses than those Cleveland Spiders, incidentally. But to get to 135, they’d have to lose every game the rest of the way. That would be a 68-game losing streak. If there’s a betting line on that, I’ll take the under.
White Sox history watch

So let’s assume the Spiders’ record is safe. But almost every other record for futility you can think of? Not so safe. Here’s what would have to happen for the Sox to set those records.

LONGEST AL LOSING STREAK — Yikes. If the White Sox lose Monday night in Oakland, they’ll pull even with those ’88 Orioles, at 21 losses in a row. If they lose two straight in Oakland, they’d evict those Orioles from the record book. Shouldn’t the entire Ripken family fly out to the Coliseum to pass that torch?

LONGEST MODERN LOSING STREAK — Next up would be the ’61 Phillies. They’ve held the modern MLB record for more than six decades. In 1988, as the Orioles were closing in, I tracked down the most famous 1961 Phillie I could find, the late great Johnny Callison, to ask if he felt the Orioles’ pain. He laughed uproariously.

“No,” Callison said. “I’m happy as hell about it. I’ve been hoping they lose 30 (in a row). Get me out of there. That team should be forgotten. It was terrible.”

100 LOSSES, HERE THEY COME — The White Sox have lost 100 games only twice in the last 50 years. But you want to know how likely it is that 100-loss season No. 3 is coming right up? Here’s a staggering stat for you:

As we mentioned, they’re now an unreal 60 games under .500. And you know what that means? Even if they play .500 baseball for the rest of the season (which feels … unlikely), they’d still lose 111 games.

’62 METS, HERE THEY COME — Those ’62 Mets are still legendary, for losing 120 games. No team has done that since. No team since those Cleveland Spiders had done it before them. So that’s the “modern” record. Which means it might not be the modern record for long.

The White Sox are now “only” 33 losses away. Considering that they have 33 losses just since June 19 (7-33), the odds seem greater that they won’t lose 120 than that they will.

The Sox have now gone over five weeks without a two-game winning streak. They haven’t won a series since June 30 (against Colorado). They haven’t won a series against an AL team since May 12 (against Cleveland). And they’re still sitting on 27 wins for the season. The Phillies won their 27th game on May 10!

So yeah, we just went there. The 1899 Spiders. The 1962 Mets. The 1988 Orioles. The 1961 Phillies. They all appeared in this upbeat little item about the 2024 White Sox. Why do I think it won’t be the last time?
Bonus White Sox note: Are you ready for some football?

I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that the White Sox aren’t scuffling on every day of the week, but … did you know they’re 0-13 on Mondays? Holy Howard Cosell!

So there was only one question to ask: How ’bout ’dem Bears?

Nope. Da Bears’ longest Monday Night Football losing streak lasted a mere eight games in a row. That fun little skid went on for four years. It started in Week 17, 1991 — a 52-14 blowout by the Chicago Ditkas to Steve Young’s 49ers. It finally ended in Week 9, 1995, when Erik Kramer threw for two scores in a 14-6 win over Warren Moon’s Vikings.

But no, those Bears were not the kings of Monday night. The 2024 White Sox have that claim to fame nailed down. Even Garfield the cat loves Mondays more than the White Sox!

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/568086 ... Id=1080693