Andrew Benintendi hit a liner to the right-field corner, driving in two runs for the Chicago White Sox in the second inning of Wednesday’s game against the Kansas City Royals.
He later scored on a single by Dominic Fletcher.
The Sox had four hits in the three-run inning, but two the rest of the way while extending their franchise-record skid to 17 in a 10-3 loss to the Royals in front of 14,112 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Royals collected 16 hits, completing a three-game sweep.
“I can’t ask them to do anything more than they’re doing,” manager Pedro Grifol said of the losing streak. “They’re giving it their very best. I’m looking in that dugout and I see guys fighting, they get here early, they work, they prepare, see video, gameplan. I don’t see anybody not giving his very best.
“If somebody doesn’t see it that way let me know. We’re in the middle of the freaking eye of the storm here. We just have to get back after it (Friday) in Minnesota, see if we can win a game, get through this thing and play some baseball.”
At 27-84, the Sox are 57 games below .500 for the first time in franchise history.
The Sox were swept for the 17th time this season. They finished 1-12 in the season series against the Royals.
“Nobody wants to lose,” starter Drew Thorpe said. “It sucks losing. But I think we have a good clubhouse and a good group of guys here and we are all pulling for each other.”
Thorpe allowed six runs on seven hits with two walks and no strikeouts in five innings.
“He battled, he had traffic the whole game other than the (1-2-3) fourth,” Grifol said of Thorpe. “He did a pretty good job of getting to two strikes to some guys but couldn’t finish guys. Left a couple balls out over the plate that they capitalized on. That’s a good contact team over there. They hit balls that found some holes.”
Thorpe added, “They saw me (on July 21 at Kauffman Stadium), they obviously know the changeup is coming. So I have to mix other stuff up. Need to get in on the guys with the fastball a little bit more. I thought the fastball command wasn’t very good. Just kind of amplifies everything else.”
He pitched six shutout innings the last time against the Royals but has struggled since.
It’s the second consecutive start he’s allowed at least six runs, after surrendering eight in two-thirds of an inning on July 26 against the Seattle Mariners.
“You’ve got to look back at it as five straight quality starts, I know it’s in there,” Thorpe said, referencing the five starts prior to the last two outings. “I knew coming in there would be growing pains and this is just one of them. Just got to get past that and get the next one and get back to how I felt two or three starts ago.”
Thorpe allowed one run in the first inning and two more in the second, but the Sox rallied for the three in their half of the second to tie the score.
The Royals regained the lead for good in the third when Bobby Witt Jr. walked, stole second and scored on a single by Salvador Perez.
The All-Star catcher drove in another run with a double in the fifth. The Royals scored twice during Thorpe’s final inning of work.
The Royals added four more runs in the ninth against reliever Sammy Peralta.
The 17-game losing streak is the longest in the majors since the 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks (17) and Baltimore Orioles (19). The Sox are the third team in Major League Baseball history to lose 84-plus times in the first 111 games of a season, joining the 1932 Red Sox (27-84) and 1916 Philadelphia A’s (23-87).
“Show up in Minnesota,” Benintendi said of the mindset through this stretch. “If you dwell on it too long, it will eat you up. It’s over with, you can’t control it. So focus on the next one.”
