2024 Chicago White Sox: One L of a season

Few, if any, thought it would be this bad. But the signs were there, as Yahoo Sports’ Russell Dorsey pointed out in a mid-April analysis of the already struggling White Sox. And sadly for the South Siders, the 2024 season continued to nosedive toward historic lows, eventually to the point that inglorious history — 121 losses — became inevitable.

Here’s a timeline of Chicago’s season from hell, one that gives the 2024 White Sox a compelling case as the worst team in baseball history — or at least the worst since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who went 20-134.

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March 28: Opening Day, when hope is at its peak in the baseball season. The hosting White Sox got shut out 1-0 in front of 33,420 fans against the Detroit Tigers and ace Tarik Skubal. In the series, Chicago was swept, starting the season 0-3. Each defeat was by one run.

April 2: Finally, a victory after starting 0-4. Garrett Crochet showed why he’s the organization’s ace with a strong outing vs. Atlanta.

April 5: In perhaps the first omen of how the season would pan out, 2023 All-Star Luis Robert Jr. strained his right hip flexor rounding first base while trying to leg out a double.

Robert missed two months due to the injury before returning June 4. The club went 14-33 in his absence.

April 9: Just four days after Robert’s injury, Chicago lost third baseman Yoán Moncada for more than five months due to a left adductor strain. Moncada was attempting to beat out an infield single when he suffered the injury.

April 15: The White Sox held an extended pregame team meeting. Manager Pedro Grifol declined to tell reporters about the specifics of the discussion, but it’s fair to guess that it had to do with the team’s 2-14 start to the season. Chicago lost its next two games to the visiting Kansas City Royals.

April 19: The White Sox were shut out again, this time against Philadelphia. The loss, which marked the sixth time the team was held scoreless in the early weeks of the season, dropped them to 3-16.

“I just think guys are pressing,” Grifol said of the team’s early season struggles. “They really care. They want to turn this around. They want to produce and be a part of the solution and part of the turnaround.”

April 28: Pitcher Erick Fedde led the White Sox to a 4-2 victory against Tampa Bay with nine strikeouts in 8⅓ innings. The victory concluded a three-game sweep of the Rays. Fedde turned out to be a free-agent gem in 2024 and a rare win for the White Sox front office. He was traded to the Cardinals the day before the July 30 trade deadline.

May 8-11: The White Sox won four straight games, their longest winning streak of the season. With the four consecutive victories, the club’s winning percentage climbed to .300.

May 18: Yankees starter Luis Gil struck out 14 White Sox in a 6-1 drubbing. Every player in Chicago’s lineup struck out at least once — including three apiece for Andrew Vaughn and Korey Lee — as the team struck out 16 times in all.

May 21: The White Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-0 thanks to a gem from Crochet. But Eloy Jiménez suffered a hamstring injury while running the bases, an ailment that eventually put him on the IL, marking the eighth time he’d landed there since April 2019. Jiménez was out of action for more than a month.

May 22: The White Sox were pummeled 9-2 by the Blue Jays, beginning a 14-game skid, their first of several long losing streaks to come.

May 24: The Sox’s defeat on this day had more to do with bad umpiring than bad luck or incompetence from the White Sox. Chicago lost 8-6 to the Orioles in a game that ended with an interference call on an infield fly.

Reportedly, MLB later told the White Sox that it was the wrong call. Yet the L stood.

May 26: After the Sox fell 4-1 to the Orioles for their fifth straight loss, Grifol held a short postgame news conference in which he called out his players. “Most of the guys were f***ing flat today. Unacceptable.” Grifol’s discussion with reporters lasted 1 minute, 10 seconds.

Lee didn’t take kindly to the criticism, according to NBC Sports Chicago. “I’ll let him comment on his statement. He’s going to feel that way, and obviously we have a different feeling,” he said.

June 2: After a 6-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, then-Sox outfielder Tommy Pham popped off about being a tough guy after he was thrown out at the plate “by a mile” — his words — in a collision with catcher William Contreras. The bravado and jawing from the celebrating Brewers didn’t sit well with Pham.

“I’m never starting anything, but I’ll be prepared to finish it,” Pham told reporters postgame. “There’s a reason I do all kinds of fighting in the offseason. Because I’m prepared to f*** somebody up.”

The White Sox traded Pham to the Cardinals in late July.

June 5: A walk-off home run from the Chicago Cubs’ Mike Tauchman doomed the White Sox to a 7-6 loss and a franchise-record-tying 13th straight defeat. It also completed two straight heartbreaking losses to the crosstown rival Cubs.

June 6: A 14-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox marked the most lopsided defeat of the season to that point. The face-plant gave the White Sox 14 straight Ls, breaking the franchise record previously owned by the 1924 team.

June 7: The White Sox defeated the Boston Red Sox 7-2 to conclude the losing skid at 14 games. Crochet led the way with 10 strikeouts in six innings. Finally, there was joy in Mudville.

If they’d only known a worse skid was coming.

Then again, perhaps some folks did. Here’s what Yahoo Sports’ Jack Baer wrote after the end of that losing streak:

“The White Sox are still the lowest-scoring team in MLB. They are still the worst pitching team in MLB by ERA+, with only the Coors Field-afflicted Colorado Rockies allowing more runs this season. They entered Friday with 25 out of 45 players to appear this season holding a negative WAR. They still have by far the worst run differential in MLB at minus-147.”

June 10: The White Sox’s bullpen collapsed in dramatic fashion, blowing a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the eighth and ninth innings against the hosting Seattle Mariners. The game ended on a Cal Raleigh walk-off grand slam. Following that 8-4 victory for Seattle, the next two games vs. the Mariners were one-run losses for Chicago.

July 10: In the first game of a doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins, relief pitcher Michael Kopech provided a rare highlight for White Sox fans by throwing an immaculate inning in Chicago’s 3-1 victory. It was the 116th immaculate inning in MLB history and the first by a White Sox pitcher in more than a century.

In the second game of the day, the White Sox lost 3-2. As it turned out, the loss was the beginning of another historic streak.

July 30: The MLB trade deadline passed, and the White Sox managed to bungle that as well. Despite rumors suggesting that Crochet and Robert would find new homes at the deadline, both stayed in Chicago. The biggest trade the White Sox made was a three-team deal involving Fedde, Kopech and Pham, which somehow netted Chicago only three prospects. The Sox also traded away Jiménez, a move that marked the organization’s capitulation on Jiménez’s once promising but injury-riddled career.

Aug. 5: On this day, more inglorious history was made, as the White Sox fell 5-1 to the Oakland A’s for their 21st consecutive loss, a losing streak that tied the 1988 Orioles for the longest in American League history. Hitting the reset button after the All-Star break clearly didn’t work for Chicago, as the team’s record stretched to 0-17 since the Midsummer Classic.

Aug. 6: The 2024 White Sox can at least say they weren’t definitively worse than the 1988 Orioles, as they beat the A’s 5-1 to snap the 21-game skid. “It’s just a sigh of relief,” rookie pitcher Jonathan Cannon told The Athletic. “We’re all major-league players. We have a lot of confidence in ourselves to go out and do our jobs every night. … It’s bittersweet. It’s nice that it’s over, but it sucks that we’ve gotten to that point.”

Aug. 8: As it turned out, that win was the final victory for Grifol as White Sox manager. Two days later, Grifol got the boot in Chicago, along with bench coach Charlie Montoyo, third-base coach Eddie Rodriguez and assistant hitting coach Mike Tosar. Former MLB All-Star Grady Sizemore was tasked with captaining the ship to the bitter end as interim manager.

Grifol’s run with the White Sox ended with an 89-190 managerial record, giving him a winning percentage of .319. In addition to all the losing, his tenure will likely be remembered for his inability to adjust to the realities and needs of a rebuilding team.

Aug. 13: Yankees superstar slugger Juan Soto recorded the first three-home-run game of his MLB career against … who else? … the White Sox.

Aug. 14: In what seemed like a rare moment of self-awareness from management about how things were going, the White Sox announced they will cut season-ticket prices for 2025 by an average of 10%.

Aug. 17: The White Sox were officially eliminated from the playoffs via a 6-1 loss to the Astros. With six weeks still remaining in the regular season, they had plenty of time to evaluate what they need to do to begin to rebound in 2025.

Aug. 25: The White Sox lost their 100th game of the season, reaching the century mark (the bad way) for the sixth time in franchise history. The previous earliest date that the club hit 100 losses was Sept. 19, 1932.

Aug. 30: The Wall Street Journal caught up with surviving members of the 1962 New York Mets, the team that held the modern-era record for losses in a season after going 40-120 in the franchise’s first campaign. “I feel sorry for them,” Ed Kranepool told the outlet. But … “Better them than me,” he said before his death on Sept. 9.

Aug. 31: The Sox tied the franchise record with their 106th loss, the ninth of a 12-game streak. The loss was a 5-3 defeat at the hands of the Mets in front of 18,267 still-faithful fans.

Sept. 3: The play: an easy fly ball into shallow left field.

White Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas, shortstop Jacob Amaya and left fielder Andrew Benintendi all converged on the ball. Vargas appeared to think he had it. Then he ran face-first into Benintendi’s shoulder.

The outcome: a black eye, both figurative and literal.

Sept. 11: Another benchmark of futility was matched when the White Sox lost their team-record 15th straight at home, falling to the Guardians 6-4. The defeat also marked the 24th time this season that Chicago was swept. “Everybody’s pissed,” losing pitcher Davis Martin said after giving up five earned runs in the first three innings.

Sept. 14: The home losing streak ended at 16 in dramatic fashion. Andrew Benintendi hit a walk-off solo homer, triggering rare fireworks on the South Side.

Sept. 16: Could the White Sox avert their date with history? On this day, Andrew Benintendi hit two homers in an 8-4 victory for Chicago against the L.A. Angels. It was the White Sox’s third straight win, their longest winning streak since June 27-29.

Sept. 21: Move over, 2003 Detroit Tigers. You have company. The White Sox lost their 119th game, falling 6-2 to the San Diego Padres. The defeat tied Chicago with Detroit for the most losses in a season by an American League team. Fortunately, the folks running the White Sox’s X handle had a sense of humor about it.

Sept. 22: The White Sox tied the modern-era record with their 120th loss of the season, matching those 1962 Mets in a 4-2 loss to the Padres. The Sox also surpassed the 2003 Tigers (119 losses) for the AL record in losing.

Sox Twitter didn’t disappoint:

Sept. 24: The White Sox avoided infamy with a come-from-behind, 3-2 victory over the Angels. It was a bizarre night featuring jeers, chants and even a marriage proposal at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Sept. 25: The Sox delayed 121 again, this time with a walk-off, 10th-inning victory off the bat of Andrew Benintendi.

Sept. 26: History would not be made at home, as the White Sox completed an improbable sweep of the Angels to stay at 120 losses with their 39th win. The 7-0 Chicago victory helped the Angels make some history of their own, as they set their franchise loss record with 96.

Sept. 27: The White Sox head to Detroit for the final series of the season. Three games left to make (or avoid) baseball history.