The Chicago White Sox emphatically broke their franchise record for longest losing streak on Thursday, with the most lopsided loss of an already miserable season.
Chicago not only fell 14-2 to the Boston Red Sox. It allowed Boston starter Tanner Houck to take a no-hitter into the sixth inning in front of a home crowd that likely came into the game with low expectations and still found a way to go with the flow.
White Sox third baseman Lenyn Sosa finally broke up Houck’s attempt with a leadoff single in the sixth and even managed to score on Zach DeLoach’s double, but the Red Sox responded by continuing to attack Chicago’s pitching staff with a home run. by Jamie Westbrook and an RBI single by Ceddanne Rafaela.
White Sox starting pitcher Zach Woodford ended up taking the loss by allowing 10 hits, three walks and seven earned runs in four innings, raising his ERA to 10.80.
Chicago’s record now sits at an absurdly bad 15-48. That’s the worst mark in MLB, far behind the second-worst Miami Marlins at 21-41. Previously, their franchise record for longest losing streak was 13 games in August 1924, but this team has found a way to overcome that century-old misery.
The 2024 losing streak has not been without its low moments either. There was a loss due to interference on the infield fly rule. There was Tommy Pham proclaiming how tough he is after being thrown out at the plate for several steps. There were back-to-back losses to in-state rivals the Chicago Cubs, the latter via a game-winning home run.
The White Sox are the team with the worst hitters in the MLB. They are also the worst pitching team.
This is a team that went 61-101 last year and, by every measure imaginable, appears to have gotten worse, after trading top starting pitcher Dylan Cease and adding only a couple of decent players in Pham and Erick Fedde.
A winning percentage of .238, which the White Sox now have, is on pace to become the second-worst record in the modern MLB era (since 1900), trailing only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (.235). One more loss and they will fall to .234, good (euphemistically) for the worst ever.
Chicago ranks last in the MLB in runs scored, with 186, more than 40 runs worse than the second-worst Marlins (227). They rank second to last in runs allowed, with 338. The only team worse is the Colorado Rockies with 348. When you look at any statistic that adjusts for the park factor and Coors Field, the home of the Rockies, as an ERA-, the Whites Sox are by far the worst.
And we haven’t even seen the shape of this team after it traded producers like Luis Robert Jr., Garret Crochet, Fedde and Pham, something Chicago is widely rumored to be interested in doing.