Record losing streak another low for white Sox, who can sink lower

Before the 2024 White Sox shattered it on Thursday, the 1924 White Sox held the record for the franchise's longest losing streak, dropping 13 consecutive games that August. When looking into the how that season started 100 years ago, it's a minor miracle that it took 100 games for everything to fall apart.

Beyond the fact that they were still wandering in the woods after throwing the World Series five years prior, their original management plans were dashed when Frank Chance, whose influenza over the winter turned into pneumonia, was in too poor of health to immediately take the reins, and his one attempt to get in uniform backfired terribly. According to Richard Lindberg's Total White Sox:

Prior to the opening of the 1924 season, the White Sox played a two-game exhibition series against the New York Giants in Comiskey Park to whip up publicity for the second "Baseball World Tour" that John McGraw and the old Roman planned for the 1924-25 offseason. The meaningless games against New York lured Chance out of his sickbed. The "Peerless Leader" contracted a cold in the frigid April climate and as a result underwent emergency surgery at Mercy Hospital the following week. Chance was sent home on the advice of physicians. Four months later this legendary Chicago sports figure was dead at age 47.

Charles Comiskey responded by throwing three other future Hall of Famers at the problem. Fellow former Cub Johnny Evers took over, but then he had an appendectomy in May, which led Comiskey to turn first to Ed Walsh, and then Eddie Collins when it was quickly decided that Walsh wasn't management material. At 1-2, Walsh (.333) is just barely ahead of Pedro Grifol's .338 for worst White Sox managerial winning percentage of all-time.

Evers later returned to finish out the season, and he was the one at the helm when the White Sox tumbled from a respectable 50-54 to last place in the American League. The following year, with Collins firmly in charge and Ted Lyons emerging into the form that eventually made him a Hall of Famer, the Sox were able to post their first winning record since the Black Sox were banned.

Unfortunately for these White Sox, there are no questions about who's in charge, no previously sustained stretches of respectability, and no hope for any kind of quick turnaround. Every light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a particularly spiteful train.

For instance, prior to Thursday's game, Grifol was asked about the nature of one-run games, because the White Sox dropped three of their last four by that specific margin. His answer would be suitable for a job interview, and perhaps he was practicing for whenever the White Sox decide to drop the ax.

"I actually enjoy one-run games because the fundamentals and just the details just surface. And to win championships, you have to be extremely detailed. You have to be very good at fundamentals and you gotta do things right. I enjoy one-run games.

"From a manager’s perspective, every move I make is critical. From a defensive perspective, everything they do is critical. Same thing for offense and pitching.

"It’s nice to have a 10-1 game where you win but those are few and far between for us. I’m enjoying and embracing these one-run games. We are going to find ways to win these. We have to stay at it."

But when these words -- and the word championships in particular -- come from a manager overseeing two of the most abysmal seasons in franchise history, they exasperate, as Ozzie Guillen so helpfully demonstrated.

The same can be said for John Schriffen, who opened Thursday's broadcast by saying, "I'm going to go out on a limb. I feel good. Tonight is the night the losing streak comes to an end." It wouldn't have sounded out of place with Garrett Crochet starting, because he's one of two reasons to watch and has five of the team's 15 wins. With the Sox reluctantly flinging Jake Woodford and a Zach DeLoach-led lineup against a potential Cy Young candidate in Tanner Houck, it only took two pitches to prove a questionable hunch exceptionally misguided. Grifol's dreams of managing a one-run game died an inning later.

Under these circumstances, it's almost a relief that the White Sox are so convincingly dreadful. Nobody using the phrase "worst ever" can be accused of hyperbole. It's impossible to spin a 15-48 record, especially when they're five games behind even the ugliest starts in White Sox history. It's impossible to frame a 14-game losing streak when no White Sox team has ever done it. Potemkin villages only stand a chance of working before a collapse. Grifol and Schriffen, for different reasons and motives, are only painting rubble.

But besides taking some small satisfaction in Understanding The Deal, there isn't much anybody on the outside can take away from it. There won't be a change in messaging without a change in leadership, and even if/when Grifol goes, there's still the fact that the presentation of this roster was Chris Getz's idea. As I wrote on Opening Day, his plan for touting the team's baseball IQ without increasing the projectable talent stood the chance of falling apart immediately because constant losing inevitably makes everybody look, sound and feel dumb.

Getz might've been handcuffed by the combination of untradeable contracts and a mandate to slash payroll to the point that "Baseball IQ" was his best attempt at faking it until making it, but again, there's no particular reason to believe him, because he hasn't yet accomplished anything else. And even if he is able to get this rebuild heading in the right direction, the regret running underneath the Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks' pregame media availabilities reminds everybody that nobody in the White Sox front office has license to make promises.

Rick Hahn used to deflect criticism by saying that fans could feel however they wanted to, but they often lacked the insider information that gave those reactions greater validity. That move was always some degree of a copout, but as long as the rebuild was seen as a promising route, they could always sell moves in service of the greater vision and kinda-sorta get away with it.

That card is unplayable because White Sox fans know far too much. The front office had it all lined up as recently as 2021, and now their team is the worst. Literally. Objectively. Undeniably. They can be comfortable trusting their own reads, which makes them impossible to sell baseball to. I suppose that's why you're seeing so much of the Campfire Milkshake, which, to be fair to Sox marketing, has done far more for their goals than Andrew Benintendi.

Worst yet, there are somehow 99 games left. That's way too much time to embarrass themselves in unimaginable directions to ludicrous extents. If this is history repeating as a farce, then Jerry Reinsdorf should know to leave Tony La Russa where he is, because the best thing you can say about this team is that no Hall of Famers have been harmed in the filming of this disaster.