White Sox — the worst team ever? — are all out of hope and credibility

Let’s start with the bad news: The White Sox began this series against the Royals with a record of 27-81.

But the good news was they still had a chance to finish the season at .500, provided they could heat up a little and go 54-0 the rest of the way.

Alas, they lost Monday’s series opener because, well, that’s what they do. Lost it in pathetic, amateur-hour fashion because that’s what they do. And, thus, guaranteed themselves a losing record — before the end of July, an unheard-of feat — because that’s who the 2024 Sox are.

Baseball has had 162-game schedules since 1961. In all the time since, not a single other team has gotten to 82 losses as fast as the sad-sack Sox.

There are untold ways to illustrate just how abysmal the Sox have been, but here’s a personal favorite. First, take their disgraceful 3-22 start to the season, which included separate losing streaks of four, five, six and seven games. Next, add their 14-game losing streak from late May to early June, which tied a single-season franchise record. Now, throw in their current 15-game losing streak — hey! It’s a record! — going into Tuesday night’s game, tally it all up and you get 3-51. But even if you were to wipe away all 51 of those losses, guess what? These Sox would still have more “Ls” (30) than “Ws” (27).

The worst Sox team ever, by winning percentage, went 49-102-1 (.325) in 1932. The worst Cubs teams went 59-103 (.364) each in 1962 and 1966. These Sox are at a previously unthinkable .247, which makes them not only the shoddiest baseball team in the city’s major league history — which began in 1876 — but the shoddiest by miles. It’s undebatable.

It’s also mind-boggling to look back at the 2023 Sox’ sick, twisted joke of a season and realize how far that was from the rock bottom it felt like. That team went into spring training with then-general manager Rick Hahn unable to stop “gushing,” as he put it himself, about first-time manager Pedro Grifol, on whom then-vice president Kenny Williams and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf also had been sold. Grifol promised the Sox — who’d been a bitterly disappointing 81-81 in 2022 — would “work hard and play winning baseball every night.” Sox expectations about contending for a division title then disappeared in April with a 7-21 start en route to 101 losses and a cartoonish run differential of -200. One of the worst Sox teams ever? No doubt, but not even in the same ballpark as this one.

“Yeah, 101 losses will rock anybody’s world,” Grifol said on the first day of spring this year.

Again, he foretold meaningful improvement, only now he was working for general manager Chris Getz. Who? Exactly. Not to be cruel, but from the outside it smacked of a no-name manager who might be a tad overemployed trying to impress a no-name GM who might be a tad overemployed, with both hoping not to let down a wildly unpopular owner whose desire to win was completely in question. What could go wrong?

Merely everything — and that’s why the Sox are arriving at Tuesday’s 5 p.m. trade deadline with practically zero discernible reason for actual hope.

After the All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, most of the American League’s superstar players having fulfilled their media duties and cleared out of the clubhouse, the Sox’ Garrett Crochet, still in uniform pants, lingered in a hallway with mom Kelly, dad Frank, sister Reagan and other family and friends. They couldn’t get enough of the moment. Crochet felt like he belonged, and it felt damn good.

An onlooker asked him if the possibility of playing for a good team someday was like a light at the end of a tunnel.

“It is,” he said. “If it’s not [with the Sox], that’s just life. You move on.”

But the Sox can’t seem to move on from their own lot in life, which might begin to explain how Hahn could have had 30 names on a list of potential managers, interviewed eight of them and ended up all-in on Grifol. One supposes it’s commendable that Grifol has kept showing up ever since appearing hopeful, determined and not like a man with an absurd 88-183 record who’s had the winning spirit sucked out of him. But is it a good thing? Most managers would look by now like Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Shining,” the offseason caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Grifol, the in-season caretaker of the Don’t-Look Sox, just keeps whistling while he works.

Assuming the Sox fire Grifol after the season, though, what then? There’s scuttlebutt about A.J. Pierzynsi, which undoubtedly would make some fans happy, but he hasn’t managed or even coached before at any professional level. It could work anyway. The Sox being the Sox, it probably wouldn’t. But if you want to get excited about the prospect of Pierzynski, go ahead, have at it.

The Sox have the same number of blown saves — 27 — as victories. Let that bit of "Sox math" marinate for a minute. Once you have, it seems silly to hypothesize about potential fixes.

The Sox weren’t going to be good this season, but they didn’t have to be like this. There are no adequate or acceptable excuses. Hope has left the building and taken any credibility with it.