White Sox at 100 losses: With more than a month to play, how low can they go?

How do the Chicago White Sox feel about becoming the fourth team ever – ever – to lose 100 games before the calendar turned to September?

I mean, they’re not pumped about it.

“We’ve been talking about it all year, I think. It’s beating a dead horse at this point,” Andrew Benintendi said after Sunday’s loss to the Tigers. “We are not where we want to be, obviously.

“We know where we are at. We know it’s not good.”

Benintendi’s frustrations are plenty understandable. After all, these White Sox have been “not good” for some time now. Just because 100 is a shiny, round number doesn’t mean the White Sox’ worst-of-the-worst play is anything new.

Losing this much obviously sucks. Having to answer questions about losing this much obviously sucks, too.

But those questions are going to keep coming as long as this team keeps hitting new mile markers on its way to what could very well be the most losses in a single season in modern baseball history.

After a 9-4 defeat at the hands of the division-rival Tigers that sent them to their 15th consecutive series loss Sunday, the White Sox are 31-100 through 131 games. With 31 games left on the schedule, they’re on pace to lose 123 games, three more than the 1962 Mets’ modern record of getting beat 120 times.

Mathematically, these White Sox cannot threaten the all-time record of 134 losses, held by the Cleveland Spiders of 1899. But it says something about the White Sox’ current level of futility that us press-box types are becoming more familiar with that illustrious crew, so much so that I can tell you they had a player with the wonderfully old-timey baseball name of Harry Colliflower.

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Though they might not reach “Spider status,” Sunday was the next rung down on the ladder to baseball’s all-time cellar for the South Siders, a descent that’s lasted all summer long.

They won just three of their first 25 games. They lost 14 in a row. They lost 21 in a row. They are 4-29 since the All-Star break.

They traded players. They changed managers. They keep walking guys. They keep striking out. They keep making errors.

And so the question becomes: How low can they go?

Indeed, Benintendi and the rest seem set to face more questions about doing something few teams have done before. As mentioned, it’s been that way for some time, though, and these White Sox have yet to quit en masse.

Showing up to the ballpark every day amid this torrent of losing seems to say something, and that’s what interim skipper Grady Sizemore is hammering home as he steers the ship on its way to the baseball equivalent of Davy Jones’ locker.

“I told these guys, ‘Forget about the record. Don’t worry about that right now. Just worry about today,’” Sizemore said before Sunday’s game. “They’ve done a great job of separating the big picture and just focusing on the task at hand and what we’re trying to do today. ‘Compete today and don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow. Just give me everything you’ve got today.’ That’s the message, that’s the focus. And they’ve embodied that.

“They’ve come to play every day. They show up, they do their work, they do their prep. They’re putting the work in behind the scenes, and they’re competing out there. So I’m not worried about, late in the year, it tailing off or anything like that. What we’re trying to do is just build off of it, just continue on the success we’ve had and competitive nature of these last couple games and continue to push for more wins and more efforts like that.”

Sure, the White Sox have seemed more energetic since Sizemore took over when Pedro Grifol was fired earlier this month, and the team has seemed to find new life in playing for Sizemore, who they respect greatly for his not-so-long-ago playing career and “one of us” appeal.

But Sizemore isn’t turning in results that are much different from the ones Grifol did, with just three wins under his belt in 14 games. While no one should have expected Sizemore to do anything outstanding in the win-loss department, that the White Sox can be seen playing the same kind of baseball that got them to this point might be bringing an end to Sizemore’s honeymoon period with fans who begged for Grifol’s ouster.

The questions about whether Sizemore could manage his way into consideration for the full-time gig might die down in a hurry if the White Sox keep losing and losing and losing.

And of course, that’s what they seem set to do, with nothing they showed this weekend against the Tigers discouraging from the notion that they’ll keep their pace and end up with more losses than any team in this century or the last.

But whether that’s a foregone conclusion or not, there are 31 games left to play, more than a month remaining on the schedule. Frustrated or not, the White Sox have to keep showing up.

“At this point, everybody is battling their own battle, me included,” Benintendi said. “I think just showing up and trying to do your job the best you can is all you can do at this point.

“It’s easy to maybe give at-bats away and things like that. I’ve done that in the past. But it’s important to know that every at-bat matters. You are down 10 runs in a game, and that at-bat might mean something in a few years. So that’s something you can tell these young guys.”

Even before the season even started, it seemed like “these young guys” – or rather the future, in general – was what there was to play for in 2024. The White Sox are in rebuilding mode, and this wasn’t expected to be a season that stretched past the end of September. Few expected all-time levels of losing, but truly what difference is there between missing the playoffs with 90 losses and missing the playoffs with 120? As long as there was progress on the long-term front, right?

The fan base, though, is vexed not just by a big league team that’s stumbling to a ridiculous number of defeats but by unseeable future success, so far off that it can’t be envisioned and even difficult to identify on a map, given Chris Getz’s lack of specifics when it comes to a timeline.

So how low can the White Sox go?

We will find out over the next 31 games.

But in the long term, maybe the question is a little different. As long as fans are unable to even glimpse a light at the end of the rebuilding tunnel, the question should perhaps be: How long can this go on?

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