White Sox losing streak hits 15 in final game before trade deadline as Bobby Witt Jr. grand slam sinks Chicago

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For the second time this season, the Chicago White Sox have set a new record for the longest single-season losing streak in franchise history. Monday night Chicago gave up six eighth-inning runs against the Kansas City Royals to blow a 5-2 lead (KC 8, CWS 5), sending the White Sox to their 15th consecutive loss. They are 27-82 on the season. That is a 122-loss pace.

The big blow Monday night came from the peerless Bobby Witt Jr. The Royals wunderkind clubbed a go-ahead grand slam with two outs in the ninth inning. Just a special, special player.

Witt’s grand slam continued Witt’s outrageously hot July: .468/.488/.810 with six homers in 20 games entering Monday. He then went 4 for 5 with a double and the grand slam against the White Sox. Witt entered July with an excellent .897 OPS. It’s now up to .988. Adding close to 100 points to your OPS in a month is just ridiculous, especially this late in the summer.

As for the White Sox, their losing streak is up to 15 games. Earlier this season they set the franchise single-season record with 14 consecutive losses, and now that record has been broken. Here are the longest losing streaks in White Sox history:

15 games: July 10, 2024 to present14 games: May 22 to June 6, 202413 games: Aug. 9-26, 192412 games: Sept. 10-22, 192711 games: Several times (most recently July 7-18, 1956)The White Sox have been around since 1901 and not once in their previous 123 seasons did they lose as many as 14 games in a row in a single season. Now they’ve done it twice this year. It should be noted the ChiSox did lose 15 straight games spanning the end of 1967 and the start of 1968. This is the first time they’ve lost 15 straight games in the same season though.

Chicago’s 15-game losing streak is the longest by any team since the Baltimore Orioles lost 19 straight games from Aug. 3-24, 2021. Those 2021 O’s are also the last team with two losing streaks of at least 14 games in a single season. That was during Baltimore’s hard-tanking era. The O’s came out of that as one of the best teams in baseball. Can the ChiSox do the same?

The trade deadline is 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday and, earlier in the day Monday, Chicago traded Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham to the St. Louis Cardinals and Michael Kopech to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-team trade. All-Star Garrett Crochet could move before the deadline. It’s possible the White Sox will field an even worse team in August and September. Yikes.