Chicago White Sox Continue Historically Poor Start in Shutout Loss to Minnesota Twins
For the eighth time in their first 22 games, the Chicago White Sox were shut out on Monday, becoming the first team in MLB history to stoop so low.
Entering Monday's divisional showdown with the Minnesota Twins, the Chicago White Sox had been shut out seven times through their first 21 games of the 2024 regular season.
That was tied for the most by any team in MLB history alongside the 1987 Kansas City Royals, making it quite the embarrassing start for the White Sox. And yet somehow, they managed to reach brand new levels of embarrassment Monday night.
Chicago once again failed to score a single run, falling to Minnesota 7-0.
In doing so, the White Sox became the first team ever to get shut out eight times through the first 22 games of a season.
Chicago was hardly ever in it Monday, going down in order in the top of the first before giving up a pair of runs in the bottom of the frame. The White Sox were hitless through 3.1 innings and only had four men reach second base all night.
And as has been routine for Chicago, their lineup failed to generate a single extra-base hit.
The White Sox currently boast the worst record in all of baseball at 3-19, putting them a whopping 13.0 games back of the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. The regular season has been going for less than four weeks, and FanGraphs has already slashed Chicago's playoff odds to 0.0%, projecting them to finish 58-104.
Not one White Sox player owns a WAR over 0.5. Two of the club's four highest-paid players – Yoán Moncada and Luis Robert Jr. – are on the injured list, with the former potentially out for the rest of the season. The team's healthy stars are hardly fairing much better, with Andrew Benintendi boasting a .371 OPS and Eloy Jiménez owning a .508 OPS.
Chicago's 45 runs are 20 fewer than any other team to this point in the year and roughly one-third of the Arizona Diamondbacks' league-leading 134. The White Sox's pitching staff also ranks No. 28 with a 5.09 ERA.
The White Sox will have a chance to bounce back and avoid getting shut out again when they rematch the Twins on Tuesday at 7:40 p.m. ET, but doing so has obviously proven difficult for them so far this season.
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