Given the sudden success of the team in the second half, watching the Chicago White Sox close out their road trip in Seattle brought back some brutal memories of 2024.
The White Sox got swept by the Mariners and played an incredibly frustrating brand of baseball in all three games.
With a lack of clutch hitting, there were countless missed opportunities for the White Sox to continue their winning ways . The team‘s worst players also cost them at the most inopportune times, which was an indictment on the front office and speaks to the stubbornness they have shown regarding a few veterans.
Lack of clutch hitting
After Jonathan Cannon got lit up for seven earned runs in the first two innings of Wednesday night's game, the White Sox actually managed to crawl their way back into things by the late innings.
The team hit their fair share of home runs with Mike Tauchman, Lenyn Sosa, and Michael A. Taylor all going yard, but they failed to come up with the big clutch hit with runners on base.
The White Sox had made it an 8–6 game with two runners on and nobody out in the ninth inning. Not only did they fail to drive in the tying run, they failed to move the runners over.
On Thursday afternoon, it was even worse. The White Sox went 1-for-17 with runners in scoring position.
Edgar Quero came up with multiple runners on base in four of his five at-bats, including the bases loaded in the top half of the 10th. Quero went 0-for-5 and made the final out of an inning three times.
Part of being a winning baseball team is having the guys that come up with big hits in big moments. The White Sox might be rolling offensively as of late, but this young core has yet to develop the clutch gene necessary to win these close games.
Front office stubbornness
You’d be hard pressed to find a single White Sox fan who can give a good reason for Josh Rojas to still be on the team's active roster.
Not only is he atrocious offensively, but he provides negative defensive value, despite his alleged “versatility.”
Rojas has an OPS of .504 this season and he made two costly errors in the Seattle series alone.
On Tuesday night, he botched a ground ball at second base that immediately came across to score after a two-run home run.
On Thursday afternoon, he entered the game as a defensive replacement at third base in extra innings. Miles Mastrobuoni put down a bunt, and Rojas threw the ball away, scoring the tying run for the Mariners and putting the winning run scoring position.
Always bunt. pic.twitter.com/7dRJPRCT1S
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 7, 2025
Rojas is a disaster on both sides of the ball, which is evident in his -1.4 fWAR, which is among the worst out of 1,364 players to enter a Major League game this season.
Still, the White Sox have kept Rojas around. It just feels like front office stubbornness at this point. Like they're too proud to admit that the signing didn’t work out. Maybe it’s the $3.5 million contract Rojas is guaranteed that is keeping him around.
Either way, all he’s doing is making losing plays for the White Sox. Chris Getz has no way to justify having him on the 26-man roster.