"Ugly" is a word that I would use to describe the first week of White Sox baseball. For a team that’s been preaching optimism and momentum all offseason, the first week has been a stark reminder of how far they still have to go. Aside from the managerial mistakes, defensive gaffes, and inconsistent bats, the abysmal performance by the White Sox pitching staff has been the primary driver of the team’s 1-5 start. Some pitchers have fared better than others, but there’s not one single player responsible for the team’s league-worst 8.63 ERA or the fact that the White Sox have allowed 13 more earned runs than the next highest team just six games into the season.
After Wednesday’s embarrassing 10-0 loss at the hands of the Marlins, White Sox fans took to twitter to state the obvious: the White Sox didn’t have to do it this way.
Lucas Giolito is still a free agent by the way. He costs money though and it would mean the White Sox would have a MLB caliber pitcher in their rotation. Can’t have that.
— Mike (@ChiSoxFanMike) April 1, 2026
The White Sox ignored red flags and accepted continuity
Let me be clear: the 2026 White Sox were always going to live and die by their young talent. White Sox staff has said on multiple occasions that the “step forward” they envision for 2026 will come from internal development. But to any observer looking deeper than the surface-level numbers, this regression was predictable, almost expected. It makes it fair to wonder why the White Sox front office, with significantly more tools and resources than the average fan, didn’t anticipate this and do something to prevent it. A reliable veteran arm in Lucas Giolito was, and is, still available.
At this point, it’s not just an issue of the starting pitching performing poorly, it’s an issue of innings. The White Sox invested resources into their bullpen, adding arms like Sean Newcomb, Chris Murphy, and Seranthony Dominguez to try to turn an inconsistent relief corps from 2025 into a legitimate strength. Instead, they’ve fielded an overworked, ineffective group just a week in, with a much longer stretch of games coming up. And perhaps the driving force behind the early bullpen problems is the starting rotation’s inability to provide any sort of length. Opening Day starter Shane Smith hasn’t even reached five innings in his first two starts combined. Sean Burke and Anthony Kay failed to make it through five in their first outing. Davis Martin and Erick Fedde got through five, but ran into traffic preventing them from going any further. It’s simply not a sustainable rotation, and fans can’t help but feel like the White Sox ignored red flags and missed an opportunity.
Now that the regular season has started, it may be too little, too late to add an arm like Giolito, who somehow remains a free agent after an effective 2025 season. Even if Giolito has remained in shape and participated in throwing programs, he’ll take some time to build up, and it’s time the White Sox can’t afford. The problem is, they spent the entire offseason knowing they needed another arm and didn’t address it. They should’ve signed Lucas Giolito in January. Every day the White Sox rotation continues to be ineffective is another day the bullpen suffers, another embarrassing loss, and another large step back for an organization hoping to make steps forward.
It’s a long season, and it’s hard to envision the pitching staff being this bad for 162 games, but it’s certainly possible that this is one of the worst pitching staffs in Major League Baseball, and it’s hard to picture this team winning too many more games than 2025 if that’s the case. As a fan, I’d always rather see the team perform than have my skepticism validated, but in this case, it’s tough not to say “I told you so”