The atmosphere at White Sox Park for the homestand against the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees was better than a team as bad as the Sox should expect for the dog days of mid-August.
Perfect weather aided attendance in the two sellouts for the City Series against the Cubs, followed by three higher-than-average crowds for the Yankees series, which ended Wednesday night. Outside of a couple of knuckleheads jumping onto the field on Saturday, leading to felony arrests and a hospital stint for one, the crowds were mostly well-behaved and into the games.
That was evident during the sixth inning of Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Yankees when they booed star Luis Robert Jr. for striking out with a runner on third and one out.
The games may be meaningless in the standings, and virtually no one expects the Sox to win when they enter the park on any given day. But Sox fans still want to see the team do the things that are necessary to win games, like making contact in that kind of situation. And they’re still paying attention, which is laudable.
To his credit, Robert said he wasn’t bothered by the booing.
“Not at all,” he said. “That’s how they feel and you have to respect that. Nothing I can control. I’m struggling right now.”
Robert has been one of the more popular Sox players since he came up in 2020, and has rarely heard boos outside of a game in April 2023 when he jogged to first base on a grounder back to the pitcher. Robert, who was benched by former manager Pedro Grifol, said afterward his sore left hamstring was hurting and he didn’t tell the manager.
Interim manager Grady Sizemore said Wednesday booing is “going to happen,” and no one is immune.
“We can block that out,” Sizemore said before Wednesday’s game. “We’re all pros in here. It’s not the first time any of us have been booed or heard a boo. It’s not distracting us or pulling us away from what we need to work on.”
Since returning from the injured list on June 4, Robert is hitting .197 with 10 home runs and a .645 OPS. His prolonged slump diminished his value on the trade market, one factor in the Sox’s decision to hang onto him at the trade deadline.
With Robert having a career-worst season, it’s hard to imagine his value going up significantly the rest of the way, leading into the offseason where he’ll no doubt be shopped again.
Robert is due $15 million in 2025, with club options for $20 million in both ’26 and ’27 and a $2 million buyout after both seasons.
Before Robert played a major-league game, the Sox signed him to a six-year, $50 million deal in 2020 that could reach $90 million if both options were picked up. It looked like a steal when he hit 38 home runs with 80 RBI in 2023, but his 0.5 fWAR in ’24 has made the deal look like an albatross.
“It’s frustrating, so frustrating that sometimes you think, ‘I’m quitting,’” he said Tuesday. “But of course you won’t. You just have to keep working.”
Sizemore said Wednesday that it’s just a matter of “comfort and a confidence (thing)” with Robert.
“He looks like he’s maybe lost a little bit of that, a little bit of comfort,” he said. “And I think that happens with all hitters. He’s been through a lot this year. For him, it’s having more at-bats like (Tuesday) night. He hit the ball hard to shortstop, he had that RBI hit late in the game. It’s building off of at-bats like that and trying to string multiple days like that together.”
Robert was pegged as a middle-of-the-order threat who could carry an offense through the 2020s. But with their best hitter having an off season and no one else picking him up, it’s become a nightmarish year for both Robert and the team.
They have no home-field advantage whatsoever and were the worst home team in baseball entering Wednesday’s finale with the Yankees with an 18-43 record on the South Side. That .295 winning percentage would be the lowest at home in franchise history, knocking the 1948 White Sox (.360 at home) out of the record books.
And as poorly as they’ve played all season, they seem to save their worst for the paying customers. The Sox started out 10-14 at home, then fell completely off the cliff, going 8-29 since May 23. Without a built-in draw like the Cubs or Yankees in the final three homestands, attendance is expected to dwindle even further with school back in late August and the Bears sucking up all the interest in Chicago.
After an off day Thursday, the Sox hit the road again for a three-game series in Houston and three more in San Francisco. They’ll have 19 home games after Wednesday, including a final, mini-homestand of three games against the Los Angeles Angels on Sept. 24-26.
If they continue at this pace, that could be the one where they tie or set a modern-day record for losses in a season. It might also be a chance to say farewell to Robert and Garrett Crochet, among the others who probably don’t fit into the rebuild.
It also figures to be the end for Sizemore, who insisted he was not thinking about the possibility of returning.
“If you’re doing that, you’re not focused on what you have today,” he said. “I owe it to the players to just be focused on tonight and to help them get a win.”
