You know what’s worse than blowing a multi-run lead against your crosstown rival to lose your 12th straight game? Doing exactly the same in their thirteenth consecutive loss.
In back-to-back games, the Chicago White Sox saw a 5-1 lead turn into a 7-6 loss against the Chicago Cubs. On Tuesday, it was an eighth-inning rally capped by Ian Happ’s RBI double that sunk the South Siders.
On Wednesday, it was Cubs designated hitter Mike Tauchman who hit the first home run of his career.
The White Sox took a 5-1 lead Wednesday with a four-run, six-singled rally in the fourth inning. The Cubs proceeded to weaken, first with a Cody Bellinger scoring double play and a scoring hurdle in the fifth, then another comeback in the seventh inning to take a 6-5 lead.
White Sox shortstop Paul DeJong tied the score in the eighth with a solo home run, but that only opened them up to heartbreak in the ninth.
The White Sox are really bad and could get even worse.
With 13 consecutive losses, the White Sox have seen their record fall to 15-47, the worst in the MLB (next worst: the Miami Marlins at 21-41) and tied a franchise record with 13 consecutive losses. Chicago’s last losing streak this long was 13 games in August 1924.
So it’s literally been almost 100 years since the White Sox lost that many games in a row.
This has not been an uneventful losing streak either. In addition to two comeback losses to the Cubs, the White Sox somehow managed to lose a game via infield fly rule interference (an umpire call reportedly reprimanded by MLB) and lose in a manner that resulted in them outfielder Tommy Pham proclaimed that he could win. people up after the game.
Expectations were low in Chicago this season after going 61-101, adding only a few standout players like Pham and Erick Fedde, and trading top starting pitcher Dylan Cease. They’re still well short of what even their most cynical fans might have expected. Their current .242 winning percentage puts them on track for the second-worst record in the modern MLB era (since 1900), trailing only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics.
And their struggles can’t even be partially attributed to bad luck. Their -140 run differential is by far the worst in the league, with a Pythagorean record of 16-46. So they are exactly one win worse than they should be judging by the runs they are scoring and allowing. His .610 team OPS is the worst in MLB. Their 4.90 ERA is second-worst in MLB, behind only the Coors Field-hit Colorado Rockies.
Even by current MLB standards, this team is a sight to behold, and it could get even worse. The best remaining players Luis Robert Jr., Garret Crochet and Fedde are all supposedly available for a trade.
