The Chicago White Sox organization entered 2025 needing to show signs of life. Coming off a season with the most losses in Major League history and an offseason that was more about acquiring prospects than Major League players, the White Sox hoped some regression to the mean and the breakout of young talent would start moving the team in the right direction.
Despite a similar record at this point in the season, the White Sox entered their weekend series at Wrigley Field feeling like progress was being made. An overall cleaner and more competitive brand of baseball was being played on the South Side.
With a solid starting rotation and contributions from young hitters, the Sox won back-to-back series against Miami and Cincinnati, and vibes were high for round one of the Crosstown Classic. This weekend, however, was nothing short of embarrassing.
An embarrassing weekend at Wrigley
With the wind blowing out at Wrigley, many anticipated a slugfest on Friday afternoon, and the bats started hot early, with Miguel Vargas giving the Sox the first-inning lead with a homer.
The good feelings didn’t last long though, as a nightmarish second inning saddled Shane Smith with 5 unearned runs. Matt Thaiss dropping the ball on an easy play at the plate was the only official error of the inning, but there were multiple plays that should have been made that contributed to the crooked number.
The Cubs put up seven more runs in the ballgame for good measure, but they weren’t even necessary, as seemingly every Sox hitter not named Miguel Vargas couldn’t do much against a struggling Cubs bullpen.
Saturday’s game started off similarly, with the Sox jumping out to an early lead and the Cubs quickly taking the lead back. A home run by Tim Elko got the Sox back within a run, and the momentum seemed to be shifting until a throwing error by Lenyn Sosa and a dropped fly ball by Joshua Palacios essentially handed the Cubs two more runs, and the game.
The White Sox hoped to avoid the sweep on Sunday, with red-hot Jonathan Cannon taking the mound. The game remained tied at 1 until the sixth inning, with Cannon having retired 13 Cubs hitters in a row. A leadoff single by Vidal Brujan very quickly turned into a run for the Cubs when Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled to knock him in. On replay, it appeared Brujan was actually out at the plate, but replay review determined there was not enough evidence to overturn the call, and the run counted.
A dropped fly ball by Brooks Baldwin set the Cubs up for two more runs, and that would be all they needed to complete the sweep.
A flashback to the 2024 White Sox
All in all, the Cubs outscored the White Sox 26-8 this weekend, with the Sox struggling in all three aspects of the game. What had been a much-improved defense struggled mightily, and the White Sox now sit only ahead of Boston and Colorado in fielding percentage and errors on the season.
An improved overall approach at the plate was nowhere to be found this weekend. Before Colin Rea walked Edgar Quero in the fifth inning on Sunday, Cubs starting pitchers had put up 23 strikeouts with no walks against White Sox hitters. This lack of approach at the plate was the reason the Sox finished dead last in on base percentage and nearly every other offensive category in 2024, and it reared it’s ugly head again in this series.
But the epitome of White Sox baseball came on Saturday afternoon, when Andrew Vaughn swung at a 3-2 pitch that nearly hit him, then stood in the box watching while the ball rolled along the backstop. By the time Vaughn started running, Miguel Amaya had already picked up the ball and threw Vaughn out easily at first base. It’s the low-effort shenanigans that made the 2024 White Sox so painful to watch. Not only was the team bad, but the players didn’t care, and they seemed to have no urgency to get better. These are the kinds of plays that the Sox needed to leave behind in 2024.
Manager Will Venable downplayed Vaughn not running on Sunday, seemingly chalking it up to a "unique play" that Vaughn got confused on...but I’m not buying it. Vaughn is a struggling hitter who’s effort has already been questioned in the past making a low-effort play late in a ballgame. This is an attitude that does not exist on a winning baseball team, and there should be no place on this roster for players who don’t care.
The White Sox will head back home to open a series with the Mariners, and will look to flush the three-game embarrassment at Wrigley Field and start fresh with a new series.
Hopefully, this weekend was a wake-up call that will light a fire under this manager and these players to show up ready to play. The 2024 White Sox were a national embarrassment, and maybe a flashback to that this weekend will be enough for them to say “never again”.