For a baseball fan, there aren’t many things more miserable than when you’re team isn’t doing well. My Atlanta Braves started off the season dismally, and they’ve struggled to get to .500 all season long. One of the things I can be grateful for is that the Braves aren’t the Chicago White Sox or the Colorado Rockies.
The White Sox shattered a decades-old record last season for the most losses in a Major League Baseball (MLB) season; however, they’ve improved their fortunes this year, though not by much. This year’s Rockies are on pace to dethrone the White Sox as the worst team ever.
And the two teams faced each other over the weekend. Rockies outfielder Kyle Farmer called it “the World Series for the two worst teams.”
The White Sox spiraled to 121 losses in 2024 — the most by any big league team, ever. On the back of a schedule populated by three double-digit losing streaks, they broke a 62-year-old record of losing futility. It was so bad that their reclusive owner released a statement, effectively apologizing for how putrid they were.
And yet here they were in Colorado, staring across the field at a team that might somehow be worse. A team nearly 50 games under .500, on pace to lose even more than the White Sox did last year. Against the backdrop of the Fourth of July, the two worst current incarnations of America’s pastime played a weekend series on America’s birthday.
Two teams facing off in one of the most beautiful stadiums in all of MLB, kicking things off with an Independence Day game. That sort of setting would be ideal for baseball, even when the two worst teams in baseball are in that series.
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The White Sox won the first two games, outscoring the Rockies 3-2 on Independence Day and trouncing them 10-3 on Saturday. The Rockies avoided the sweep with a 6-4 win on Sunday.
After the series, the White Sox are in last place in the Central Division of the American League with a record of 30-60. The Rockies are the worst team in MLB, looking at a record of 21-69 and sitting in the cellar of the National League West. Neither team is in an enviable position as summer rages on, but maybe they can regroup during the All-Star Break. Maybe.
Both teams seem to think that they can improve their fortunes.
“We feel like we’re in a much better place than we were a year ago,” White Sox general manager Chris Getz told The Athletic. “We’ve got some pieces we believe in, with some of the players we’ve brought in from trades or guys that have come up. We feel like we’re headed in the right direction. Do we feel like we’re knocking on the door of where we want to be? We do not. But we wanted to clearly define some objectives.”
“The players that you have, you have to maximize what is in them, and use them accordingly,” Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer said. “That might look a little different than it did before. But that’s a good thing, because we’re progressing.”
It’s easy to feel bad for these two teams, but at least they have some optimism — even if that optimism is just coach-speak. Either way, I bet that series was a fun one to watch simply because of the beautiful Colorado setting.
Yes, even teams in the cellar can offer some entertainment (especially when they play each other on the Fourth of July in a stadium as gorgeous as Coors Field). But if you’re tired of watching your team flounder and listening to “rebuilding year” coach-speak, there’s one place where you won’t get spin — just sharp, bold, independent commentary you can trust.
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