CHICAGO (CBS) — The White Sox are finally coming off a dismal season that fans and players alike are more likely to forget setting the modern record for most losses in a seasonfinished 41-121, beating the previous record for futility of 40-120 set by the 1962 New York Mets.
While no one expected the White Sox to be good or even average in 2024 — with a shortage of talented hitters or pitchers on the roster and a 101-loss season in 2023 — few expected the South Siders to be historically bad. .
So what went wrong? Simply put: everything.
The White Sox had the worst offense in baseball, finishing last in the league in runs scored with 507 – nearly 100 runs fewer than the next worst offense, the Tampa Bay Rays, who scored 604 runs.
Breaking the White Sox’ hapless offense even further, the White Sox ranked last in the league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, hits, home runs, runs batted in, and walks.
Their pitching wasn’t much better. The White Sox allowed the third-most runs in the league, with 813, behind only the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins. Their pitchers also surrendered the fourth-most home runs in the league, had the second-worst WHIP in the Majors and gave up the most walks in the MLB.
So they couldn’t score consistently, nor could they reliably shut down opposing batters, ending the season with the worst run differential in the MLB, at -306. The next worst team, the Colorado Rockies, had a series differential of -247.
Even their best player, midfielder Luis Robert Jr., a 2023 All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner, was a major disappointment. He went from hitting .264/.315/.542, with 38 home runs and 80 RBI, to a slash line of .224/.278/.379, with 14 home runs and 35 RBI, after missing nearly two months with a hip injury . bending injury.
The team’s incredible display of futility was the culmination of a long, grueling season in which the White Sox posted multiple double-digit losing streaks, including a 14-game skid from May 22 to June 6, and one after that American League record of 21 games lost between July 10 and August 5. All that loss led to the dismissal of manager Pedro Grifol during just his second season at the helm. In less than two seasons, Grifol led the team to more than twice as many losses as wins.
Grady Sizemore took over as interim manager for the remainder of the season.
The White Sox subsequently recorded another losing streak of twelve games which lasted from August 23 to September 3.
Only one other team in the MLB had even one double-digit losing streak all year, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who had a 10-game losing streak but still finished with a much better record of 76-86.
White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf called the season “embarrassing” and a “failure” and took responsibility in a letter to fans during the final game of the season on Sunday.
While Reinsdorf promised that changes are coming, White Sox fans shouldn’t expect to see a winning team on the South Side anytime soon, given how far they’ve fallen and how much rebuilding they’ll have to do.
