Too little, too late: Et tu, Luis?
Late comeback can’t save South Siders from dropping the ball vs. the A’s, 6-5
Former Gold Glove winner Luis Robert Jr. kicked a routine single into a two-bagger in center field tonight, knotting the game up, 3-3, and setting the tone for another inevitable loss:
Is tonight’s loss Robert’s fault? Of course not. But Robert, the sole superstar on the team (and yes, this is a team coming off of 121 losses so it’s a given we’re using the term loosely) has been godawful in the majority of this season’s 26 contests. His WAR is sub-zero, following a trend that saw him fall to worse than a typical MLB regular last year. Just two years ago, Robert was a 5.3 WAR player finishing fifth in AL MVP tallies.
Robert is a complete mess. Body language and waving wildly at pitches and all the easy stuff to pick on and overanalyze aside, he’s playing unimaginably poorly. There’s talk of how impressive it is he has seven stolen bases (putting him close to on track for 10 in April, a fairly rare achievement). But La Pantera has been CAUGHT four times! Do you realize how poor a baserunner you have to be to get caught 4-of-11 times in professional baseball today? And I’m not talking about, José Abreu running, or Edgar Quero; Robert is a superathlete with speed and instincts to burn, and yet ... he’s awful.
In five trips to the plate tonight, Robert singled once and walked, was erased off of the bases once with the caught-stealing, and struck out three times, including to end the game.
As much as we pine for hope in 2025 after the misery of 2024, how we hold our breath that that shiny-prospect light at the end of the tunnel is not in fact a train, we are destined for more misery.
There were positives in this game, including a surprise, two-run rally in the ninth off of big-armed A’s closer Mason Miller (Lenyn Sosa single, whoa nellie Brooks Baldwin homer!). You can read some of them in the polls below.
By the way, the homeless A’s are now back to .500, at 13-13. Insert jokes about having been able to play the White Sox four times already. But the larger line looming here is a team with an owner outright undermining his own club, leaving Oakland without even having a future home sewn up, is thriving under such circumstances and utterly outclassing the South Side ballclub.
Or, said another way: The A’s are in enough games for Miller to have earned his eighth save tonight. The White Sox, by fluke of a game truncated by rain after seven innings, just earned their FIRST team save of the season on Thursday.
Futility Watch
White Sox 2025 Record 6-20, fourth-worst start in White Sox history and tied for 18th-worst start in baseball history. A 6-20 record projects to 37-125 over a full season.
All-Time White Sox Record (1901-2025, 19,232 games) 9,600-9,632 (.4992). It’s been 71 games since the White Sox had an all-time winning record
- Race to the Worst “Modern” 162-Game Record (2024 White Sox, 41-121)
- Race to the Worst “Modern” Record in a 162-Game Season (1962 Mets, 40-120-1, finished three percentage points worse than the 2024 White Sox)
- Race to the Most White Sox Losses (2024, 121)
- Race to the Worst White Sox Record (2024, 41-121)
4 games worse, in each case
Race to the Worst Post-1899 Record (1916 A’s, 38-124 adjusted to 162 games) 1 game worse