A dubious franchise distinction awaits the Chicago White Sox, and it could arrive as soon as Sunday afternoon’s home game against the Detroit Tigers.
The White Sox stand one loss shy of 100 defeats this season, which would give the club triple-digit defeats in consecutive campaigns for the first time in its 124-year history (they had 101 last season). In fact, the White Sox have reached the century mark only five times.
The White Sox are 4-28 since the All-Star break and 1-7 against the Tigers in 2024. Saturday’s 13-4 loss dropped Chicago to a franchise-worst 68 games below .500.
“We’re not playing our best ball, but we’re trying to get to that point where we’re playing our best ball,” White Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore said.
Corey Julks, Luis Robert Jr., Lenyn Sosa and Andrew Vaughn were the Nos. 1-4 hitters in Chicago’s batting order Saturday. The quartet combined to go 9-for-19 with four RBIs.
Dominic Fletcher also had two hits, giving the White Sox five players with multi-hit games.
Trouble was, the Tigers matched that total, with catcher Jake Rogers pacing the attack with a 3-for-5, three-RBI night. Matt Vierling, Colt Keith and Zach McKinstry homered to help Detroit out-hit Chicago 14-12.
“It was good. We had a lot of great at-bats,” Rogers said. “I mean, we had a lot of hits, and that’s what we want. Scored a lot of runs and helped those pitchers relax a little bit and attack the zone.”
That’s the mindset manager A.J. Hinch wants the Tigers to have.
“One of the goals is to create an offense where one-through-nine we feel pretty good about what we can do to put up good at-bats,” Hinch said. “The results will follow, and sometimes they’ll be good nights, sometimes they won’t. But the buy-in from the players and the work done behind the scenes with the coaches is [something] I’m very, very proud of.”
The Tigers have won five of their past seven games to climb to two games below .500. Detroit enters Sunday 8 1/2 games out of the final American League wild-card spot.
Two of the teams the Tigers are chasing, the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals, play in the same division. Detroit has three games against the Royals remaining, a road series from Sept. 16-18, and they’re done with the Twins for the year.
A wild-card berth probably isn’t in the cards, but the Tigers haven’t lost their focus or incentive.
“We’re trying to win. We’ve got a lot of guys getting opportunities right now with young guys, but they’re playing their butts off, man,” Rogers said. “Honestly, it’s all about winning right now. Trying to create a culture and go forward and really just inching up to that .500 mark and being a winning ballclub. That’s all you can really ask for.”
Assured of at least a split of their four-game set with the White Sox, the Tigers will try to win the series Sunday as right-hander Beau Brieske (2-3, 4.24 ERA) kicks off a bullpen game.
Brieske is 1-1 with a 1.69 ERA in seven August appearances covering 10 2/3 innings. He is 1-0 with a 1.00 ERA in three games and one start vs. the White Sox over nine innings.
Rookie right-hander Jonathan Cannon (2-7, 4.26 ERA) will get the call for Chicago. Cannon has lost his past two starts. He endured the worst start of his career on June 23 at Detroit, allowing eight runs (five earned) and seven hits in one-plus inning.
–Field Level Media