OAKLAND, Calif. — When it gets this bad — when the last win was so long ago, you’ve forgotten what winning even feels like — helplessness can set in.
The beauty of baseball is that after a loss, there’s another game the next day. But anguish sets in after repeated beatdowns, day after day after day. Another game, another “L.”
Defeat and unrelenting failure have taken a toll on the White Sox, who lost their 21st consecutive game Monday, a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Athletics to tie the 1988 Orioles’ American League-record skid. The Sox, a national story they don’t want to be, are now two losses from tying the 1961 Phillies’ major-league record of 23.
Losing all three games in Oakland would tie these Sox with those Phillies and set the stage for the record-breaker at home Friday against the Cubs, the very last team the Sox would want to impose such a catastrophe upon them.
The Sox have lost five games since last Tuesday’s trade deadline, when they dealt away Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech, Tommy Pham, Eloy Jimenez, Paul DeJong and Tanner Banks. They have lost a record 17 straight games since the All-Star break.
Their 27-88 record has them on pace for 124 losses, four more than the expansion 1962 Mets’ record of 120.
“We haven’t done anything as a group, like wear different socks,” reliever John Brebbia said before Monday’s game. “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.”
Visitors to the Sox’ clubhouse are asked later what it’s like inside. Before games, it’s much the same as any clubhouse. After, 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.
Players are discussing manager Pedro Grifol among themselves, wondering how he’ll survive. They were wondering even before this streak — not so much as an indictment of Grifol, but knowing that other managers have been fired for less. The Sox started 3-22 this year after finishing 61-101 in Grifol’s first season. Then they lost 14 straight games from May 22 to June 5.
Before Monday’s game, in which the Sox sent left-hander Ky Bush (0-1) 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 sat down for cards, got food from the kitchen, went to their respective meetings and did their pregame work.
Bush walked three in the first inning and spiked a wild pitch, but he survived with one run allowed and survived five walks and a hit batter to complete four innings with three runs allowed. He left with the Sox trailing 3-1.
The Sox were held to four hits. Andrew Vaughn doubled and Andrew Benintendi singled in the fourth against A’s lefty JP Sears to tie the game 1-1. But Max Schuemann drove in two runs with a single against Bush in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-1 A’s.
Pinch hitter Lawrence Butler’s homer against Sox reliever Chad Kuhl in the sixth made it 4-1. In the eighth, Zack Gelof scored on a strikeout and dropped third strike, racing home on catcher Korey Lee’s throw to first and beating Vaughn’s throw to the plate, making it 5-1.
“Everybody’s hurting through this,” Grifol said before the game in the visiting manager’s office. “Everybody is anxious to a point where we just want to go out there and win a baseball game, right? What I’m really impressed at is, I know how much these guys care.”
If only caring were enough to win a game. And when the Sox do and 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,” Lee said. “That’s baseball.”
But there’s no getting around it. This bad baseball is something few teams have seen.
“It’s tough, man. It really is,” Vaughn said. “Everybody is working hard. We just have to go one day at a time.”
“It’s tough, man. It really is,” first baseman Andrew Vaughn said.
The former Sox player and manager, who is currently a co-host on pregame and postgame shows on NBC Sports Chicago, is suffering through another miserable season.
“That’s just the way it is,” says Grifol, who was trying to halt the Sox’ losing streak at 19 Sunday.
The Sox are three losses away from the 1961 Phillies’ record.