July will save or officially break the Chicago White Sox season

It will not be easy to make up that ground for a couple reasons.

One, the White Sox are a combined 1-7 against the Twins and Guardians this season. They have seven games against the Twins and eight against the Guardians in July.

The second reason it will be an uphill battle is the Chicago White Sox’ longest win streak on the season is six games that came in early May.

Any time it seems the White Sox get some positive momentum going, they follow it up with a terrible stretch of baseball. It is either the pitching, defense, offense, or all three that just completely fade away.

You need all three to log a big winning stretch.

The Sox had a stretch where they won six of eight to get back to .500 on June 21st. They followed that stretch up by losing six of their next eight games at the end of June to drop to four games below .500.

The third reason is La Russa’s lineup card logic. Anytime the Sox have had some momentum, La Russa tinkers with the lineup to the point where it is not giving the Sox the best chance to keep a win streak going. Then to follow it up, his in-game managing does not help the cause.

For example, in the series finale against the Los Angeles Angels, he gave Andrew Vaughn a day off. He sat one of his best hitters against Shohei Ohtani. In the sixth, the White Sox had a chance to plate some runs with two outs.

Instead, La Russa stuck with Garcia. By the way, anyone else notice that Tony seems to have an obsession with playing the struggling Garcia?

Anyways, Garcia struck out to end the inning. It is those type of decisions that continue to halt the Sox’ chances of stacking wins. His thinking behind those decisions makes it even more suspect that the Sox can put together a big win streak.

Finally, we go back to the injuries.

The White Sox seem snack bitten in that area. Just when it seems like they are fully healthy, a major injury happens. For example, the Sox got Tim Anderson back from the IL and it looked like he could be paired with Danny Mendick in the infield. Mendick was having a great year and then he suffered a season-ending knee injury.

The Sox desperately need a winning month in July.  They will be in a deep hole if they replicate what they did in June–where they went 12-15, A hole that would be so deep that it would not matter who they acquire at the trade deadline because it would not be enough to get them out.

If they are in that deep of a hole, they might as well be sellers at the trade deadline. That is why July will make or break the White Sox season.