White Sox fall to Cubs on walk-off HR for franchise-record 13th straight loss

You know what’s worse than blowing a multi-run lead against your crosstown rival to lose your 12th straight game? Doing the same exact thing for your 13th straight loss.

In consecutive games, the Chicago White Sox watched a 5-1 lead turn into a 7-6 loss against the Chicago Cubs. On Tuesday, it was an eighth-inning rally capped by an Ian Happ RBI double that sunk the South Siders.

On Wednesday, it was Cubs designated hitter Mike Tauchman delivering the first career walk-off homer.

The White Sox took their 5-1 lead Wednesday via a four-run rally, featuring six singles, in the fourth inning. The Cubs proceeded to chip away, first with a run-scoring double play by Cody Bellinger and a run-scoring balk in the fifth, then another rally in the seventh inning to take a 6-5 lead.

White Sox shortstop Paul DeJong tied it in the eighth with a solo homer, but that only opened them up for heartbreak in the ninth.

The White Sox are really bad, and they could get even worse

With 13 straight losses, the White Sox have seen their record fall to an MLB-worst 15-47 (next-worst: the Miami Marlins at 21-41) and tied a franchise record with 13 straight losses. Chicago‘s last losing streak this long was a 13-gamer in August 1924.

So it’s literally been 100 years since the White Sox have lost this many games in a row.

This hasn’t been an uneventful losing streak either. In addition to two comeback losses to the Cubs, the White Sox have managed to somehow lose a game via infield fly rule interference (an umpire ruling reportedly reprimanded by MLB) and to lose in a way that resulted in outfield Tommy Pham proclaiming he can beat people up after the game.

Expectations were low in Chicago this season after going 61-101, adding only a few players of note such as Pham and Erick Fedde and trading away top starting pitcher Dylan Cease. They have still fallen well shot of what even their more cynical fans might have expected. Their current .242 win percentage puts them on pace for the second-worst record in MLB’s modern era (since 1900), behind only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics.

It’s not even like their struggles can be partially attributable to bad luck. Their minus-140 run differential is by far the worst in the league, with a Pythagorean record of 16-46. So they are exactly one win worse than where they should be judging from the runs they’re scoring and allowing. Their .610 team OPS is the worst in MLB. Their 4.90 ERA is the second-worst in MLB, behind only the Coors Field-afflicted Colorado Rockies.

Even by the tank-heavy current standards of MLB, this team is a sight to behold, and it could get even worse. Top remaining players Luis Robert Jr., Garret Crochet and Fedde are all reportedly available for a trade.