The White Sox are simply plain higher than they have been final season.
Go on, ask them.
“Issues are totally different this 12 months,” stated veteran outfielder Andrew Benintendi, who was within the DH spot Tuesday because the Sox started a series against the Brewers at Fee Discipline. “The mindset right here is totally different. We’ve been in a whole lot of video games we most likely might have received that we simply haven’t but.”
Stress-free on the base of the dugout steps, Benintendi nodded his head on the door to the clubhouse.
“The perspective in there’s totally different,” he stated.
Just a few hours later, Benintendi would take a Freddy Peralta first-inning fastball over the wall in proper for the Sox’ first run of a six-game homestand. Luis Robert Jr. would comply with that with a 415-foot blast to middle — the Sox’ first back-to-back jacks of the season.
Constructive issues are taking place all through the group, basic supervisor Chris Getz guarantees. The massive-league membership is hanging in there, rookie supervisor Will Venable insists.
OK, perhaps the good-vibes Sox are on to one thing.
Then again …
On the danger of lacking an even bigger image, didn’t the Sox come into this homestand with a document of 7-21? And isn’t a document of 7-21 — strive to stick with us right here — obscenely unhealthy?
Final 12 months’s Sox, who set the modern-day main league document with 121 losses, have been 6-22 after 28 video games. Technically, that’s even worse than 7-21. Form of like having 10 damaged toes is even worse than having 9 of them. Is one actually any much less terrible than the opposite?
“Though we’re not racking up the wins that we wish,” Getz stated, “we all know that actually there are higher days forward as this group comes collectively within the close to future.”
Sure issues in regards to the Sox are fairly encouraging. They’ve gone from having the worst offense in baseball — by miles — in 2024 to merely having one of many worst offenses in 2025. They’ve gone from having the very best workers ERA (4.68) within the American league to having the fifth-highest ERA (4.13) within the AL. It isn’t a lot of a praise, however no less than they haven’t been catastrophically inept on all fronts.
Additionally, after all, there’s the farm system Baseball America ranked fourth-best in baseball heading into spring coaching. That’s one thing Getz and firm proceed to level to as a place of power — and it’s, comparatively talking — although it’s a harder promote with prospect Colson Montgomery now at a frightening profession crossroads.
The Sox can attempt to paint what they’re doing with Montgomery — yanking him off their Triple-A squad in the midst of a season and sending him to Arizona for particular person work — as a standard developmental hurdle, however it’s way more critical than that. Montgomery, a 23-year-old shortstop, is totally drowning on the plate within the minors, batting .149 this season. The Sox are pulling him to security in hopes of saving his profession. That’s known as actuality.
In the meantime, the Sox have already got eight- and six-game dropping streaks this season. They’ve misplaced eight of 9 sequence. They’re 2-10 towards the Central division, having been outscored 28-12 on an 0-6 journey to Detroit and Cleveland. They’re 2-7 towards the Athletics and the Angels, the groups projected because the worst within the AL apart from the Sox coming into the marketing campaign.
Earlier than the tip of April, Fangraphs dropped the Sox’ possibilities of making the playoffs to — no want to achieve to your calculators — 0%. Solely the impossibly horrible Rockies, who’ve began the season 4-24, are at 0%, too, as they fight to not lose 121 or extra video games themselves.
And about that not-so-magical quantity, 121: These Sox may be marginally higher than final 12 months’s rendition, however 7-21 is a successful share of .250. That’s a tempo to complete basically proper at 41-121 once more. We’d ask Sox followers if they’ll even think about such indignity, however by now they most likely can.
“While you don’t win video games, it feels such as you’re not making strides,” Getz stated.
Sure, sure, it does.
“From watching the video games, whether or not it’s up shut or from afar, we’re in these ballgames,” Getz stated. “We’ve received probabilities to win virtually each evening. It’s only a matter of executing on the proper time. There’s a whole lot of season left.”
The Sox started the homestand as one among 5 big-league groups with out 100 runs scored but, as one among three with out 100 hits, third from the underside in dwelling runs and on-base share, and on the very backside in batting common (.211), slugging (.326) and OPS (.612).
The purpose being it’s nonetheless obscenely unhealthy.
Catastrophically inept? We’ll spare them that descriptor for now.
“We want that it was an in a single day course of,” Getz stated. “It’s not.”
Don’t Sox followers realize it.
