What do you think is worse than losing 12 straight games after blowing a multi-point lead against an in-town rival? Doing the exact same thing and losing 13 straight games?
For the second straight game, the Chicago White Sox watched a 5-1 lead turn into a 7-6 loss against the Chicago Cubs, but on Tuesday a comeback capped off by an RBI double by Ian Happ in the bottom of the eighth inning sunk the South Side team.
On Wednesday, Cubs designated hitter Mike Tauchman hit his first professional walk-off home run.
The White Sox stormed back with four runs, including six singles, in the fourth inning to take a 5-1 lead on Wednesday. The Cubs then scored on a Cody Bellinger double play and a balk in the fifth, then stormed back again in the seventh to take a 6-5 lead.
White Sox shortstop Paul DeJong tied the game with a solo home run in the eighth inning, but that led to a heartbreaking ending in the ninth.
The White Sox are really bad, and they could get even worse.
The White Sox’s 13-game losing streak left them with an MLB-worst record at 15-47 (behind the Miami Marlins’ 21-41 record), tying a franchise record. The last time Chicago had lost that many games in a row was in August 1924.
It’s literally the first time in 100 years that the White Sox have had that many consecutive losses.
This losing streak was anything but ordinary. In addition to two come-from-behind losses to the Cubs, the White Sox also managed to lose on an infield fly interference call (an umpire’s call that was reportedly reprimanded by MLB) so badly that outfielder Tommy Pham declared after the game that he would be happy to punch the opponent.
Chicago went 61-101 this season, and expectations were low after they traded away starting pitcher Dylan Cease and only acquired a few notable players, like Pham and Erick Fedde, but still fell far short of what more cynical fans might have expected. Their current .242 winning percentage is on pace to be the second-worst in MLB’s modern era (since 1900), behind only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics.
Their struggles can’t be blamed in part on bad luck: Their minus-140 point differential is by far the worst in the league, and their Pythagorean record is 16-46, meaning they’re one win worse than they should be, judging by runs scored and runs allowed. Their team OPS is .610, worst in MLB, and their 4.90 ERA is second-worst in MLB, behind only the Coors Field-struggling Colorado Rockies.
Even by today’s underpowered MLB standards, this team is impressive and could get even worse, with the remaining top players, Luis Robert Jr., Garrett Crochet and Fedde, all reportedly trade targets.
