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The Chicago White Sox are historically bad. But they stopped short of further infamy Tuesday night thanks to a 5-1 win over the Oakland A’s.
The win snapped a 21-game losing streak that tied the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for the longest in American League history.
The loss ensures that the White Sox won’t claim the record for their own. It also ensures that they won’t match or surpass the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies, who hold the modern-day MLB record with a 23-game losing streak. They won’t match them with this losing streak, at least. They have 46 games remaining this season to start a new one.
For now, this chapter of White Sox misery is complete. The win is the first for the White Sox since a 3-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins on July 10. It’s their first in 18 games since the All-Star break.
A’s pitcher provides startling perspective on White Sox losing streak
Ross Stripling, the losing pitcher in the game for the A’s, didn’t want to be the person to allow the White Sox to break the streak, but he at least had some amusing perspective after the game, via the San Francisco Chronicle:
“They’re a team that we feel like we should beat, and obviously they’ve lost 20-something in a row,” pitcher Ross Stripling said. “Gosh, the (former President) Trump assassination attempt happened between the last win and today, which is one of those stats that just doesn’t feel possible.”
The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump occurred on July 13, three days after Chicago’s previous win.
Chicago got on the board first Tuesday night with a two-run Andrew Benintendi home run in the fourth inning. That was all it would need.
The White Sox added three more insurance runs as Chicago pitching limited the A’s to a single run for the rest of the game.
Along with Benintendi, starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon was the White Sox hero Tuesday night. Cannon pitched six innings, allowing one earned run on six hits while walking two and striking out five. The only damage done was via a solo home run by Zack Gelof.
Relievers Dominic Leone, Chad Kuhl and John Brebbia contributed one shutout inning each to secure the Chicago victory. The White Sox and A’s have one game remaining in their three-game series.
Can White Sox fend off further ignominy?
Chicago’s losing streak entailed being on the wrong end of six series sweeps. Four of those series were against teams in position to make the postseason (Twins, Mariners, two against the Royals). A series against the last-place A’s, who boast the second-worst record in the AL behind the White Sox, turned out to be just what Chicago needed to close out the streak.
The White Sox are still on pace to record one of the worst seasons in baseball history. A previous 14-game losing streak that concluded in June helped ensure that. With Tuesday’s win, the White Sox improved to 28-88 (.241).
That leaves them 41 games out of first place in the AL Central and 26.5 games behind the next-worst team in the division, the Detroit Tigers. Their -241 run differential is 70 runs worse than the next-worst team in baseball, a 42-72 (.368) Colorado Rockies team that boasts a -177 run differential.
The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (36-117, .235) are the worst team in terms of win percentage in the history of MLB’s modern era. The expansion 1962 New York Mets played eight more games than the 1916 Athletics and hold the record for most single-season losses in the modern era with a 40-120-1 (.248) record. Both of those records are very much in striking distance for the White Sox.