Chicago White Sox Lose 21 Straight Games, Tying 36-year-old AL Record

The Chicago White Sox’s historically bad losing streak has now extended to an eye-catching 21 games as they lose to the Oakland Athletics 5-1 out west. This skid ties the American League record for longest losing streak since the Baltimore Orioles lost 21 in a row back in 1988.

Chicago now falls to 27-88 and is on pace to have one of the worst, if not the worst, regular season in the modern era. The 1962 New York Mets hold the record for the most losses at 120.

The pitching for the White Sox has been largely impressive. Garrett Crochet was the representative for the team at the All-Star Game, posting a 3.19 ERA and 1.01 WHIP.

Surprisingly, he stayed put after the trade deadline, but pitchers Michael Kopech and Erick Fedde were both shipped off to the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively.

Luis Robert Jr. has been the lone brightspot offensively for the White Sox, and even this has been a down year by his standards. When healthy, Robert has produced a .210 batting average and .702 OPS to go along with only 12 home runs in 2024; this after a 38-homer season in 2023.

However, the offense has been much worse than anyone could have imagined.

CWS Offensive Statistics	MLB Team Rank
Batting Average	30th
On Base Percentage	30th
OPS	30th
Runs Scored	30th
Total Homeruns	29th

Manager Pedro Grifol is now a lowly 88-189 as the manager on the Southside.

How To Attack The Books

When betting against a team as bad as the White Sox, bettors are often lucky to get half their money back if they win – a risky price not worth the reward should a stray upset happen. You’ll have to turn to the runline to get any sort of value, an approach that not everyone feels comfortable taking.

The White Sox enters Game 2 of a three game series against the Oakland Athletics. Jonathan Cannon (1-5, 4.11) will take on veteran Ross Stripling (2-10, 5.64).

On FanDuel, Oakland’s -1.5 runline at an even -110 is worth a look. In seven of Cannon’s nine starts where the White Sox have lost, they lost by more than one run. The Oakland bullpen ranks seventh in ERA and 12th in hits allowed per nine innings. Look for Cannon to get blown up early and for the A’s bullpen to keep things in check from there.

This kind of projection also opens the possibility of some interesting parlays on FanDuel.

If you want to focus on Cannon getting punished early, you can parlay Cannon getting less than 3.5 strikoutes (+110) and the over on 4.5 total runs in the first five innings (-125) at +212.

If you want to focus on something that’s not tied to a specific team, this is a good opportunity to parlay for there to be over 0.5 runs in both the first (-108) and second innings (+100) at +247. Oakland has let up the second most runs in the first inning per game at 0.69, while Chicago has allowed the ninth most at 0.53. Oakland allowed the third most in the second inning at 0.67, while Chicago is at sixth most with 0.62.

Again, this is a hard game to bet when one team doesn’t really provide much value. There are ways to scheme together some simple yet solid bets by taking advantage of the White Sox’s poor offense.

Oakland -1.5 is the way to go by backing a bullpen that should keep the worst batting order in the MLB in check.