White Sox Early Season Struggles

With a very disappointing season last year, the Chicago White Sox front office made some big changes, but these changes haven’t paid off so far.

The biggest change to the team was the firing of manager Tony La Russa as well as all of the bench coaches except for the first base coach.

The expectations from fans and everyone in the MLB had for the White Sox as a world series contender last season but they unfortunately underperformed like crazy last season. But with the additions and new manager this year the Sox looked like they were going to jump back.

Signing outfielder Andrew Benintendi, from the New York Yankees, has been a consistent contact hitter throughout his whole career. They also signed starting pitcher Mike Clevinger, from the San Diego Padres, who is looking for a bounce-back after a bad year last season.

Students have had their opinions on the team’s slow start and the decisions made in the front office.

“I expected the Sox to compete for a wild card spot, maybe even the division since it’s not that competitive. I thought a new manager would help them get over the hump,” senior Austin Ayers said.

Other students have had different opinions when it comes to the way the team has been playing this year. The White Sox knew coming into this season their pitching would be the main issue for the team, but that has not been the only issue. The whole offense has not hit well, and to prove that they have the 28th-worst bullpen in all of MLB.

“The issue I believe is the pitching and hitting. Outside of cease, everyone had been awful and I feel some of the hitters are just getting lazy and not being disciplined, ” senior Meyer Rogoff said.

“An issue with the Sox is we don’t really have stars besides Tim Anderson and Louis Robert,” junior Peter Mestousis said.

The Sox have been frugal with spending money and free agency. The White Sox are one of three teams in MLB history to never give a player a 100 million-dollar contract. This is obviously an issue in today’s game where many of the stars easily make over 100 million dollars and the owner doesn’t like spending money.

The Sox are currently 10-21 after losing 10 games in a row, but they are now on a three-game win streak. Two out of the three wins have been walk-off wins. This gives the fans hope with Anderson back, the offense in this little win streak has been back to normal.

Since his return, the offense making a lot more contact and scoring a lot more runs. Anderson brings a different sort of energy to the whole entire team and front office and you can tell right now the team is reading off of it right now. After winning the team’s first series just recently after losing the first 10 series of the entire season. Hopefully, the White Sox can turn this terrible start around like the 2019 Nationals did and make a deep playoff run this year.