White Sox losing streak hits record 14 games as Lucas Giolito, Liam Hendriks weigh in on latest rebuild

Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks sure looked happy when the Guaranteed Rate Field video board showed them during a second-inning tribute.

They can be happy they’re not going through what their former team is going through right now.

The Chicago White Sox losing streak spun on Thursday night, the South Siders setting a new undesirable franchise mark in a blowout loss, their 14th consecutive defeat, now the most in a single season in club history. Another one Friday, and they’ll tie the team record for the most consecutive losses, achieved previously across two seasons in the 1960s.

After what seemed like one emotionally draining defeat after another over their last five games in Milwaukee and on the North Side, this one was a laugher, the Red Sox banging out a ridiculous 24 hits in a 14-2 clobbering. The White Sox managed four hits.

A laugher it might have been, but the White Sox aren’t laughing, nor are their fans, something the players are well aware of.

“Outside these doors, it’s tough right now, as it should be,” Gavin Sheets told CHGO before Thursday’s game. “As our record is, I’m not sitting here saying things should be rainbows and green grass, because it’s not.

“It’s a long season ahead. And if you give up right now and you start pointing fingers and start blaming the clubhouse and doing all that, it’s a long, long season. Stretches like this are never fun, but that’s not the way to go about it.”

It’s an even worse replay of a year ago, when Giolito and Hendriks were part of one of the worst teams in franchise history, a group that skidded to 101 losses despite preseason expectations of contending in the AL Central.

Fans have been furious for years now, thanks to back-to-back massively disappointing seasons in 2022 and 2023 and the ongoing futility that is 2024. Of course, those most likely to pitch a fit on social media aren’t the ones living in it.

“It was harder as a White Sox player last year,” Hendriks said. “It was not a fun experience to be around. It was not a great situation to be a part of.

“Obviously, I signed with the intention of it being a long-term window of contention, and it didn’t quite come to that way. It’s unfortunate because you’ve got to take it on the chin. You’ve got to realize that I was part of that. It wasn’t that guy, it wasn’t this guy. It was that united group, and we failed. We failed the city. We failed the front office. We failed everyone around. We failed the fan base.”

The perennial championship-level success envisioned for Rick Hahn’s rebuilding project never materialized, thanks in large part to consistent injuries, as well as underperformance from both homegrown cornerstones and players brought in from the outside. Hendriks and Giolito were both All Stars during their White Sox tenures, with Giolito’s no-hitter and Hendriks’ comeback from cancer standing as two of the most celebrated highlights from the last few years of White Sox baseball.

But the way it all ended in 2023 remains shocking, such a dramatic distance between what was expected to happen and the eventual reality.

“I feel like the culture at the very end started to really — we were trying to develop something, and it started to really kind of just dwindle,” Giolito said, “which in my personal opinion, was kind of sad to see. … I’m not going to sit here and name any names or anything like that. But you know, I do think back on that time and there’s some things that are like — I know the question gets asked: ‘Why did this happen? Why did it not come together?’

“It’s like, sometimes it just doesn’t, you know?”

There hasn’t been much good news for this year’s White Sox team, but if there’s anything to point to in terms of improvement, it’s that this group isn’t dealing with those same culture and clubhouse issues.

It’s been striking, actually, with how dour things are after each new defeat, that the guys show up in generally good spirits the next day.

“If you can take a positive from what’s going on right now, it’s that. It’s this clubhouse, it’s the guys we have in here,” Sheets said. “The clubhouse can go one of two ways right now. It can get (into) a lot of conflict. Or guys can come together and pull for each other and support each other, and I think we’ve done a good job of that.

“It’s tough. It sucks for everybody. A stretch that no one wants to be a part of. But the only thing we can do is rally around each other continuously and go out and attack every single day, be a pro.

“I definitely think (this year’s team is able to handle the losing better than last year’s). It’s good in the clubhouse. Obviously, you don’t want to go through a stretch like this and test it this way. Yeah, I think it’s a small silver lining through this all.”

But as well connected a group this has seemed since the early days of spring training, fans don’t much care, particularly as the losses are piling up with such rapidity. Pedro Grifol’s job status is a national talking point, and “SELL THE TEAM” chants are a nightly feature at 35th and Shields.

And it’s not expected to get much better, at least not quickly. Chris Getz is in the early stages of another long-term rebuilding project, with all eyes on what he’ll be able to do at the trade deadline, when departures could actually weaken a team that already boasts the worst offensive and defensive statistics in the sport.

Still, the idea of any long-term rebuilding project is to turn the rubble of a season like this one into a contender, something the White Sox attempted with the likes of Giolito and Hendriks and something Getz is tasked with doing right now.

“I don’t know if they’re labeling it a rebuild, I don’t know what they’re saying. It’s just that kind of situation you have to go through, that low period, to start to chisel away and figure things out,” Giolito said. “That’s the one, I guess, regret or thing that I think back on our times, is we went through that period and then we have that window where we could have really done something special. We just didn’t capitalize on it.

“So it’s always something I’m going to look back on and be like, ‘Damn, I wish we could have done that.’”

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