We enter the tail end of summer, and the beginning of meteorological fall, with a look back to last summer, when Danny and I travelled to Seattle to visit the Space Needle and see the White Sox take on the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.
Tag / Mariners
Sour Sixteen
After a busy day watching teammates getting traded away, rookie Jonathan Cannon took the mound last night looking to stop his team’s record fifteen-game losing streak. He did his part, throwing 7 innings of 1-hit ball, leaving with a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately, rookie Fraser Ellard, making his major league debut thanks to those earlier trades, couldn’t hold down the fort and the White Sox fell to the Royals once again, losing 4-3 and extending their losing streak to a franchise-record sixteen games.
Only five other teams have lost sixteen consecutive games in a single season since 1994: the 2005 Royals (19 losses), 2011 Mariners (17 losses), 2021 Diamondbacks (17 losses), and 2021 Orioles (19 losses). The 2024 White Sox now join this list, while now racking up more blown saves (28) than wins (27). They will once again try to snap this losing streak this afternoon against the Royals.
Losing 14 Again
The White Sox tied their franchise record for consecutive losses in a single season yesterday, dropping their second straight game to the Mariners by the score of 6-3 for their fourteenth straight defeat. Over the course of their 125-year history, the franchise’s previous fourteen game losing streak came less than two months ago.
The overall team record is fifteen straight losses, which happened with five losses to end of the 1967 season followed by another ten straight to start the 1968 season. The 2024 incarnation will attempt to avoid tying this mark tonight, as the Royals come to town for a three-game series.
Tragic Number 13 (Again!)
For the second time this season, the White Sox lost their thirteenth consecutive game, dropping last night’s contest against the Mariners 6-3. This is the first time in franchise history that they have had multiple ten-game or more losing streaks in the same season. Prior to this year, the only previous single season thirteen game losing streak came 100 years ago in August of 1924, a season they finished 66-87. The 2024 White Sox have already lost 80 games.
The current losing streak comes amidst a July featuring of 18 losses in their 21 games. They will look to avoid tying the franchise record for consecutive losses in a single season, set last month, this afternoon against those same Mariners.
Looking Ahead To 2025
Last week, on the extra off day in the All-Star break, Major League Baseball released their tentative 2025 schedule while I was away in Amsterdam. For the third year in a row, MLB is keeping with a balanced schedule, playing 52 games against division opponents, 64 games against non-division opponents in the same league, and 46 interleague games, with series against every team in the opposite league. With the White Sox about to cement the worst season in franchise history and the Cubs trying to figure out what went wrong on their way back to contention, the 2025 season looks like it could be a long one for the city of Chicago. So, for one day, at least, let’s turn our attention to next summer for both teams.
The White Sox celebrate the 125th anniversary of the franchise, opening their season on March 27 at home against the Angels, kicking off a six-game homestand that also features the Twins. They will make their first visit to Sacramento, the new home of the A’s, in the last weekend of April.
The interleague schedule sees the Phillies, Marlins, Cardinals, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Padres coming to Guaranteed Rate Field, while the White Sox will go on the road to face the Pirates, Reds, Dodgers, Braves, Mets, Rockies, and Nationals. The rivalry with their north side foes continues with a three-game weekend series at Wrigley Field in mid-May followed by another weekend at Guaranteed Rate Field the last weekend in July.
After wrapping up the home portion of the schedule in mid-September against the Orioles and Padres, the White Sox wrap up the 2025 season on the east coast, battling the Yankees and the Nationals to finish up the year.
On the north side, the Cubs head to Japan to open their season on March 18 with a two-game tilt against the Dodgers in Tokyo. They return to the US to face the Diamondbacks on March 27 before heading to Sacramento for the first time to face the A’s. They open up the home portion of the 2025 season on April 4 against the Padres.
Aside from the A’s, the Cubs will head out on the road to face the Twins, Angels, Yankees, Blue Jays, and Tigers, while the Mariners, Orioles, Guardians, Red Sox, and Royals will be coming to Wrigley Field.
Only ten of their 25 games in September are against their NL Central rivals, which could make a difference should the Cubs find themselves in contention. They end the year with a six-game homestand, facing the Mets and the Cardinals.
All Time Team Records
After a long, disappointing winter, the 2024 baseball season is set to get underway tomorrow. To celebrate, it is time once again to look at the all-time team records for games that I have identified as having attended dating back to 1984. Last year, I tied 2011 for my eleventh highest game total of all time, an increase of ten games from the year before, and managed to see 21 out of the 30 teams, so there should be some nice changes.
The White Sox just may be worse this year following a disappointing 2023, with new general manager Chris Getz treading water by bringing in defensive upgrades who can’t hit their way out of a paper bag. On the other side of town, the Cubs brought in Craig Counsell to push a team that overachieved back into playoff contention but didn’t do a whole lot to improve the roster to help him do so. The 2024 season may just be a maddening year on both sides of town.
All-Time Team Records
| Team Name | Won | Loss | Winning Pctg |
|---|---|---|---|
| California Angels | 2 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 16 | 4 | 0.800 |
| Florida Marlins | 15 | 8 | 0.652 |
| New York Yankees | 19 | 12 | 0.613 |
| Colorado Rockies | 11 | 7 | 0.611 |
| Cleveland Guardians | 3 | 2 | 0.600 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 13 | 9 | 0.591 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 17 | 12 | 0.586 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 20 | 15 | 0.571 |
| Boston Red Sox | 19 | 15 | 0.559 |
| Washington Nationals | 7 | 6 | 0.538 |
| Cleveland Indians | 31 | 27 | 0.534 |
| Chicago Cubs | 235 | 213 | 0.525 |
| Chicago White Sox | 366 | 342 | 0.517 Continue reading → |
2024 Predictions
The North American portion of the 2024 baseball season is scheduled to kick off on Thursday, with a full slate of games featuring all 30 teams. For the fourteenth consecutive year, I’ve looked into the crystal ball to make my picks for the upcoming season.
American League
East: Rays
Central: Guardians
West: Mariners
Wild Cards: Astros, Blue Jays, Yankees
AL Champion: Yankees
Cy Young: Tristan McKenzie
MVP: Julio Rodriguez
National League
A New Voice
On Thursday, the White Sox announced that John Schriffen, a 39-year-old from New York, had signed a multi-year deal to become the team’s new television play-by-play announcer. He replaces Jason Benetti, who, due to growing frustrations with the White Sox front office, left in November to fill the same role with the Tigers after seven years in the White Sox booth. Schriffen, who is biracial, becomes the second Black television play-by-play announcer in MLB, joining Dave Sims of the Mariners.
This will mark Schriffen’s first play-by-play assignment for a team, he has broadcast Korean baseball for ESPN during the pandemic and has done some MLB work for ESPN Radio. His other work at ESPN includes college basketball, college football, college baseball, the XFL, NBA preseason, G-League and Summer League. After multiple interviews, he met with team owner Jerry Reinsdorf and color analyst Steve Stone this past weekend in Arizona for a final audition. “We hit it off immediately,” Schriffen said. “Everybody knows Steve Stone is the greatest. He has done everything in baseball broadcasting – the dude is a legend.”
Three Of A Kind
On a cold winter’s day, the attention of the baseball world turns to upstate New York and the hamlet of Cooperstown, where the votes were tallied, and the 2024 Hall of Fame class is now complete. Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer join Jim Leyland, who was elected by the Veteran’s Committee last month, in obtaining baseball immortality. Beltre, the former Dodger/Mariner/Ranger, and Mauer, the long-time Twin, make it on their first try. Helton, the former Rockie first baseman, was on his sixth go-around.
Four others tallied greater than 50% of the vote, led by Billy Wagner, who came just short at 73.8% and seems likely to make it next year, his final year on the ballot. Gary Sheffield saw a not-insignificant jump in his final election, rising to 63.9%. Andruw Jones rose to 61.6% with three more years to go. In his second go-around, Carlos Beltran jumped up to 57.1%.
On the local front, Manny Ramirez, who spent a little more than a month with the White Sox at the tail end of his career, saw a small decrease in support, finishing with 32.5% of the vote thanks to his multiple PED suspensions. The disgraced Omar Vizquel, accused of both sexual abuse of an autistic teen and spousal abuse since being added to the ballot, dropped again, going down to 17.7%. Jimmy Rollins, who spent the final 41 games of his career on the south side, picked up 14.8% in his third go-around. Mark Buehrle fell back again, dropping to 8.3% in his fourth time on the ballot, living to fight another day. Former White Sox pitchers Bartolo Colon and James Shields nabbed five votes between them.
Eight players will fall off the ballot after failing to score 5% of the vote.
As for the newest Hall of Famers, I’ve seen Mauer play 42 times, Beltre 17 times, and Helton eleven times. They will get their day in the sun on Sunday, July 21.
Joe Mauer’s numbers in games I’ve attended were:
2023: The Year In Travel
As we ring in the new year, it’s time to take a look back at the trips out of Illinois that I took last year. Things got off to a fast start, as I traveled down to Orlando on New Year’s Day to see Purdue take on LSU in the Citrus Bowl. While the game did not go well at all, it was a good change of pace to get out of the cold weather. I stayed the entire week, working remotely to kick off 2023 and enjoying the hotel pool.
My next trip out of state came in early February, when I picked up Danny and headed down to Bloomington, Indiana to see the #1 ranked Boilermakers take on their hated rivals. Once again, things did not go well for the boys in gold and black, which led to a long drive back to West Lafayette. The next day, the two schools did battle again, with the women taking the court at Mackey Arena, but the outcome was not any better.
A few weeks later, I returned to the Lafayette area to watch Danny’s band concert. After lunch with him, his friends, and their parents, we headed over to the Long Center for the Performing Arts to take in his performance. Thankfully, his section was first, so we were able to take our leave early and head back home.
I stayed home for a few months, until Danny finally cashed in his high school graduation trip, and, in mid-June, we headed west to Seattle. We arrived on Friday morning and headed to Pike Place market for lunch before attending the White Sox and Mariners tilt that night at T-Mobile Park. The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the ballpark for another exciting game. After an hour-plus wait for an Uber after the game, we rested a bit at the hotel before heading back out to see the Space Needle and enjoy a nice dinner. On Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day by flying home.
The start of college football season brought with it three consecutive weekend trips to West Lafayette to close out September. The first saw Purdue do battle against Syracuse, falling 35-20. I headed back down the following Thursday night thanks to a rare Friday night tilt. After working remotely from the hotel, I headed over to campus where Purdue tried valiantly to end its losing streak against Wisconsin, but it was not to be. The next morning, I met Danny for breakfast before heading home. The following Saturday, I returned once more to see Purdue earn its first home victory of the year, defeating Illinois handedly.
In late October, I took my somewhat-annual quick trip to Boston to celebrate birthdays with Angelina. I arrived on Saturday, headed over to her apartment in the afternoon, and then we went out to dinner in the North End. The next morning, I was on a plane headed back home.
My final three trips of the year were all, once again, back to West Lafayette. Purdue faced off against Minnesota two days before Danny’s birthday, so we had a post-victory dinner at his house. Two weeks later, we headed down the day after Thanksgiving to prepare for his senior day against IU. As part of the festivities, he got to conduct the band during the pre-game show and then hit the drum with the rest of the seniors during halftime. The day concluded with a trip to the Olive Garden for a celebratory dinner. My final trip of the year came just days before Christmas, when Danny and I headed to Mackey Arena to see the men’s basketball team hold court against Jacksonville.