Chicago White Sox: This team is outrageously bad at baseball

The Chicago White Sox have lost two out of three to the worst team in baseball (a team that is arguably one of the worst ever).

Sometimes, bad teams win series against teams that are better or at least, not quite as bad. It happens. But the way it happened on Saturday is embarrassing for the Chicago White Sox, as they lost to the Oakland A’s 7-6 in an extra-inning walk-off.

The Sox didn’t face a starting pitcher who had dominating stuff nor did starting pitcher Dylan Cease have a truly terrible day (his line wasn’t great but he only allowed 3 runs). If one of those were the case, you could understand a loss, even against the A’s.

But that’s not what happened. The White Sox blew a 6-4 lead when reliever Joe Kelly allowed a two-out walk, followed by a double, and then balked a run home.

The tying run followed when Tony Kemp hit a ball to the first-base side of the pitching mound that should’ve been fielded but wasn’t.

A chance to re-take the lead went by the wayside when Luis Robert Jr. — who, to be fair, has been one of the team’s few bright spots this season — got thrown out on a double steal.

The winning run came across after second baseman Elvis Andrus fumbled a ground ball and threw to first base too late to get the runner. First baseman Gavin Sheets was slow to throw to home and the A’s had themselves a walk-off.

There were two outs — if Andrus fielded the ball cleanly, the Sox would’ve had another chance to bat. This follows the Los Angeles Angels walking the Sox off on a wild pitch earlier in the week.

The Chicago White Sox are just not a good baseball team at all in 2023.

Other recent tough losses include two against the Miami Marlins — one in which shortstop Tim Anderson bobbled a ball he should’ve fielded and another in which the Sox’s bullpen allowed the Marlins to chip away at a seemingly safe lead.

Poor defense, pitchers allowing walks, hitters chasing pitches outside the strike zone at way too high of a rate — the White Sox continually beat themselves instead of allowing the opponent to do it.

They often make mistakes that are confounding — mistakes that even Little Leaguers know to avoid.

The most frustrating part of this is that this is the team that fans were told would be competitive after a multi-year rebuild. And there is talent on this roster.

It’s understandable if an untalented team makes dumb mistakes. It’s also understandable if a rebuild fails because players aren’t as talented as the front office thinks.

But this team does have raw talent. We see it in Robert and in flashes from Eloy Jimenez, Andrew Vaughn, Gavin Sheets, Lucas Giolito, Jake Burger, Cease, and others. Tim Anderson is having an awful year but he’s had success in the past.

Veteran Andrew Benintendi, who signed a massive contract as a free agent, has played well for most of the season, despite having a lack of power. When healthy, Yoan Moncada is a dangerous hitter and reliable fielder.

Injuries are one thing and have been a problem for the Sox in 2022 and 2023. There’s no doubt. But even when healthy, players make way too many dumb mistakes.

I didn’t like the hiring of Tony La Russa as manager but I thought one thing he’d do well would be to help players be better fundamentally. Similarly, we were told new manager Pedro Grifol would be able to improve fundamentals.

That hasn’t happened. So either players aren’t buying into the message, the manager isn’t as good at development as he seemed, or both.

It’s also possible that the Sox’s farm system is terrible at building basic skills — perhaps in combination with one or both of the possible problems highlighted in the previous sentence.

Whatever the case, the Sox have raw talent but no baseball IQ and they also make too many physical errors on routine plays.

Some amount of physical errors are to be expected even among the best players — no one is perfect and baseball is hard. But the Sox make more than any team with playoff aspirations should.

No team with playoff aspirations, even in the dreadful American League Central, should lose a series to the 2023 Oakland A’s, either. But the Sox did.

It would be forgivable, if not annoying if the A’s outplayed the Sox. But the Sox lost the series because they beat themselves, and that is happening way too often.

It’s simply unacceptable and if it doesn’t change, the Sox championship window will be slammed shut so hard it breaks.