It was a record-setting day on the south side on Sunday.
White Sox fans don’t need to be told this, but the sooner the 2024 season ends, the better. With their 2-0 loss to the Mets at Guaranteed Rate Field on Sunday, the Sox are 31-107, setting a new franchise record for the most losses in a season.
There are 24 more games to play this year, so they will undoubtedly push that number of losses much higher, hopefully setting a bar that is never approached again. The benchmark to watch for now is whether or not they will lose 120 games or more. If they do, the White Sox of ‘24 will have achieved a new low in baseball history, doing even worse than the 40-120 record posted by the 1962 Mets.
Understandably, the guys in the Sox clubhouse don’t want to dwell on their collective ineptitude.
“There’s no sense in harping over the record right now,” manager Grady Sizemore said. “We’re trying to just improve upon every day and get better as each series goes on. My message has been the same since I got here, and it’s not about the record, it’s not about wins, it’s just about competing and playing together as a team.”
The Sox have won three games out of 21 since Sizemore took over on August 8. At that pace, they’ll finish the season with 35 wins, which would shatter the record set by the Mets sixty years ago.
There are very few silver linings to be found, either. Last season Luis Robert, Jr. had his first full year, missing just 17 games, and he showed off the skills that have made him such a tantalizing player for several years. In 2023, Robert, Jr. was an All Star, clubbing 38 homers and hitting 36 doubles.
But this season, Robert, Jr. looks as lackluster as he ever has in his career. In Sunday’s loss, he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. The one time he reached base, on a hit by pitch in the seventh inning, Robert, Jr. got thrown out trying to steal second. Later that inning, Andrew Vaughn walked and Gavin Sheets singled him over to third. Had Robert, Jr. still been on base, he would have been the game-tying run.
And in the ninth inning, with the game still 1-0 in the Mets’ favor, Robert, Jr. let Starling Marte’s double bang off of the wall rather than make an attempt to catch it. That allowed a run to score. Robert, Jr. needs to protect his body, especially given his injury history, but that is the kind of play he’s made in the past, and in a one-run game, there’s a level of defensive effort that’s expected.
If there are any positives to be gleaned from Sunday, Garrett Crochet looked as sharp as he has all season. He tied a franchise record with seven straight strikeouts to start the game, and Crochet was perfect through three innings. He touched 100 miles per hour twice and had ten pitches over 99.
“It’s definitely encouraging,” Crochet said. “The work I’ve put in with [pitching coach] Ethan [Katz] and as far as just fixing my tempo, I felt like I kind of lost that after the All-Star break. Right now, I feel like I’m in a really good rhythm. Able to use all my weapons like I did today and when I’m doing that I feel like it puts me in a good spot.”
Even though the plan to limit his pitches and innings has been in place since just before the All Star break, Crochet still struggles with accepting when it’s time to come off the mound. He was visibly frustrated when Sizemore came for the ball on Sunday, and Crochet noted that the seven strikeouts in the first two innings were good, but he didn’t like that they used up so many of his pitches.
“He didn’t want to come out. And he’s not going to. It’s just the competitor in him,” Sizemore said. “He’s pretty frustrated when I came out there, but I think he knows the situation and what we’re trying to do. He threw well. He was on, he had good stuff.
“It’s going to be tough when he’s on a short leash like that and a pitch count that he’s never going to get to go as deep as he wants.”
In the next 24 games, the Sox play three more series against teams in the playoff picture – the Orioles, Padres, and Guardians – and other than a series against Oakland at home in two weeks, there won’t be a lot of easy contests. Breaking the 1962 Mets’ record seems like an inevitability.
Doubtless the whole group looks forward to putting this season behind them.
“There’s not really a perspective to put into it at this point,” Crochet said of his team’s futility. “It sucks to say that we’ve been here before and we’ve dug ourselves out of it with a win. We just continue to come to the field every day fighting and playing a good brand of baseball.”
“I don’t think there’s really anything you can learn. I think it’s more just having the same mindset you have when you’re on a winning streak.”
