To watch the Chicago White Sox as the season winds down is truly a labor of love.
Since the beginning of the month, the White Sox have gone 3-10 with one postponement thrown in for good measure.
That record is par for the course as the team has posted only one winning month this year, and that was May when they went 15-14. The month of June saw them land right on .500 at 13-13.
Those two months aside (in March they split the two games they played), the White Sox are a combined 37 games under .500 for the rest of the schedule.
The Chicago White Sox have not been playing good baseball at all lately.
What really hurts is the fact the American League Central division was there for the taking. The Minnesota Twins, who are, again, dominating the White Sox in the regular season, lead the woeful division with a 78-70 record.
No other team in the division is even close to that with the Cleveland Guardians sitting in second place eight games under the break-even mark going into Friday.
Following Friday's defeat to the Twins, the White Sox inched a step closer to the dreaded century loss mark at 56-90 with 16 games remaining. Based on the team's performance throughout the course of the year, that mark seems well within reach.
According to baseball-reference.com, the White Sox are 14-26 in blowout losses, the criteria for which is a defeat of five runs or more. What's almost as astounding is the team has just one more win and the same number of losses in one-run games.
For the second night in a row against the Twins, the White Sox gave up 10 runs. The White Sox have given up double-digit runs in three of their last four games, all of which were losses.
Teams have been lining up at the bat rack when taking on the White Sox. Since September began, the White Sox have given up 86 runs in that time span. That comes out to an average of over 6 runs a game allowed.
The opposition has also put up 121 hits and had seven games of 10 or more hits to put up those run totals.
The White Sox offense has posted 39 runs fewer than that during the same period, posting only one game in which they scored 10 runs.
Through 14 games in September, the White Sox have scored 6 runs four times and two runs five times. In the other three games, the Southsiders scored 0, 10, and 1 runs.
To say the White Sox have given up on the year (although some might say that happened a long time ago) is somewhat unfair in that some guys are playing for positions on the team next year and no one really knows what is going through anyone's mind when they prepare for a game.
Despite having five blowout losses and one blowout win this month, the White Sox have been in each of the other games they played. Aside from a 6-0 victory over the Kansas City Royals on September 8th, all other games were decided by two runs or less.
That isn't to suggest the season hasn't been a dumpster fire because it has. A 56-92 record doesn't exactly call for a celebration.
The hope is the team plays hard and shows some fight for what is left of the season.
The remaining games on the schedule include three teams they have yet to face those being the Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, and the San Diego Padres. The other team on the docket is the Boston Red Sox who the White Sox have beaten two out of three times.