I don't often watch baseball because it is a really time-consuming experience that I have to be in the right mood to enjoy. I did live in Chicago at a point in my life though and when you do live there you are essentially forced to become a fan of either the Cubs or the White Sox. I think I chose White Sox because the place that I lived in was mostly Cubs fans and I like to go against the grain. While I was living there the Sox were a better-than-average team and one time they did really well in the playoffs against the Cubs of all teams.
I haven't really followed them outside of looking at their stats every now and then and when I was looking at the stats in the past week I found out that they set a record for the most consecutive losses in franchise history, ties as a record for the American League that has stood since 1969, and ties the record for all of MLB since 1988. This is not the sort of record that you want to have.
It started on July 10th and extended to August 4th, which is the last time they played. Since the 10th of July, they have lost 23 out of 24 games and had it not been for that one win back in July, they would have the records extending further back than 1969.
There are a huge amount of games in Major League Baseball and this is part of the reason why I don't really watch the sport. There's too many games if you ask me. The White Sox are 27-87 on the year thus far and are well-placed to set some all-time records if this continues. If they manage to lose another 6 games they will tie the all-time losing streak record that was set by a team you probably haven't even heard of, the Louisville Colonels, back in 1889.
What can you really do once you reach this point? We are well out of the playoff picture now and I would imagine that they are already exhausting their roster and using it as best as they can. The way it is working now is that there is always a danger that the team will start to look for individual stats rather than playing as a team in the hopes that they will get noticed and picked up by another team in future season. When a team performs this badly, there is always a very real and reasonable fear that the management is going to go back to the drawing board and simply fire nearly everyone on the team.
By the way, check out the relatively recent update to the catchers helmets. That looks like some solid safety gear right there!
The White Sox' next 3 games are against the Oakland A's, who are the second worst team in the AL (by a lot) and they play them 3 games in a row. As I write this the Sox are down 3-1 in their first game against Oakland. This might be the last chance for the White Sox to NOT set the record of 26 consecutive losses because if they can't pull off a W in this series, they are going to be facing a much better team immediately after when the face the Chicago Cubs for a 2-game series. If there is one thing that the Cubs, and the Cubs' fans would love to do, it would be to help their rivals on their way to being the worst team in MLB history.
I just kind of feel bad for them at this point. Get ready for some frantic play I suppose. The Sox have been tearing through pitchers like crazy in the past several games as they search for a weapon that actually works. Up to now, none of them have.