OAKLAND, Calif — When it gets this bad, when the last win was so long ago you’ve forgotten what winning even feels like, a certain level of helplessness sets in.
The beauty of baseball is there’s another game the next day after a loss, though. The anguish comes from the repeated beatdowns, day after day after day, just another loss.
Defeat and unrelenting failure have taken a toll on the White Sox, who are a national story entering Monday’s game against the Athletics at Oakland Coliseum carrying the burden of a 20-game losing streak, one loss from the 1988 Baltimore Orioles’ American League record and two from the 1961 Phillies’ major league record.
A sweep in Oakland would tie the Phillies and set the stage for the record breaker at home Friday against the Cubs, the very last team the Sox organization would want such a catastrophe imposed upon them.
The Sox had lost four in a row since last Tuesday’s trade deadline when the dealt away Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech, Tommy Pham, Eloy Jimenez, Paul DeJong and Tanner Banks. They’d lost 16 straight since the All-Star break.
“We haven’t done anything as a group like wear different socks,” relief pitcher Erick Fedde said. “I would have to imagine that’s coming. Do you have any ideas? If you want to crowdsource some ideas that would be welcome, too.”
Clubhouse visitors are asked what it’s like inside the Sox clubhouse. Before games, to the onlooker it looks much the same as any clubhouse. After games, it’s as quiet as can be. Players look at their phones, whisper to each other in hushed tones and probably hope not to be interviewed.
“Running out of words,” losing pitcher Chris Flexen said after Sunday’s loss to the Twins.
Conversations behind the scenes and in the dugout among players are unknown, but it’s known they’re talking about the manager and wondering how long Pedro Grifol will survive. Those questions were being asked before this streak, not so much as an indictment of Grifol but knowing managers have been fired for less. After all, the Sox started 3-22 after finishing 61-101 in Grifol’s first season, and then they lost 14 straight games from May 22 – June 5.
“I’d have to take a poll of the clubhouse but I don’t think anybody likes losing consistently,” Brebbia, who played for the Cardinals and Giants before signing with the Sox as a free agent during the offseason. “But there’s something weird about being in any competitive environment. If we won 18 games in a row and then lost one, we’d be pretty bummed about that one single loss. So, no matter how much you win or lose there’s that same drive of wanting to win, or that feeling of being pissed or sad. You get that every time you lose no matter how many.”
“The most frustrating part for me is, a single person can only do X amount to help win a game,” Brebbia said. “If I was a hitter and went 5-for-5 with five home runs that would help, of course but it’s one of those things where you have to feel that anger or rage of losing but that’s a result of a group and I can only do individually as a group as can everyone else to push the group higher.”
Before Monday’s game at Oakland, where the Sox were about to send lefty Ky Bush to face the A’s in his major league debut, you wouldn’t have known the Sox were in the thick of this downward spiral.
Music played, players played cards, got food from the kitchen, went to their respective meetings and went about their normal business.
And if the Sox finally break the skid?
“We’ll play our win song, we’ll get to hear it, we’ll have our players of the game and we’ll go on to tomorrow, play another game,” catcher Korey Lee said. “That’s baseball.”
But there’s no getting around it. This streak has been something that few franchises have seen.
“It’s tough man, it really is,” first baseman Andrew Vaughn said. “Everybody is working hard. We just have to go one day at a time.”
“You have the change the mindset that day, that you’re going to put the work in and go out and perform. I look at the big picture. We’re in a tough stretch and you can’t worry about yourself. You have to worry about everybody else. It’s a team. We have to trust each other.”