Emma: White Sox are lost in a storm with no escape in sight

CHICAGO (670 The Score) — White Sox manager Pedro Grifol grasped a baseball bat in both hands Friday afternoon as he sat in the home dugout of Guaranteed Rate Field and looked toward the sky as clouds rolled through.

Grifol cracked a smile before going out to the field and working with the White Sox, who entered Friday on a single-season franchise-worst 14-game losing streak. It’s undoubtedly a challenge to maintain positivity during a season like this.

The White Sox are 15-48, and Grifol has fielded questions in recent days about his job status. As it pertains to the White Sox parting ways with Grifol, MLB insider Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported earlier this week that it’s “only a question of when it will happen” – not if it will happen.

“We’re in the middle of a huge storm,” Grifol said.

At this stage of the season, Grifol and the White Sox are drowning.

The White Sox are on pace for a 39-123 mark, which would represent the most losses in a single season in modern MLB history. They entered Friday with a –152 run differential, a figure that worsened with an ugly 14-2 loss to the Red Sox in their series opener Thursday.

White Sox infielder Danny Mendick had the team’s lone scoreless pitching appearance Thursday as he had the Red Sox reaching for his 35-mile-per-hour "fastball" out of the bullpen.

For context on how bad they've been, the White Sox are 16.5 games back of the Tigers for fourth place in the AL Central. Only three other teams in the big leagues have such a deficit back of first place in their respective division. The White Sox are 9.5 games worse than the Angels, who are the second-worst team in the American League.

“Look, we prepare every day to win,” Grifol said. “And when we don’t win, we break down the game (and) why we didn’t win, whether it’s the pitching, the hitting, the defense, the baserunning, whatever. And we come back the next day and we go over it with the players, we talk about positioning, we go out and measure stuff, we talk about 0-2, 1-2 counts, we talk about two out of threes, everything. And we prepare for tonight’s game.

“It’s painful. For sure, it’s painful that we’re not winning and we’ve lost 14 in a row. Who the hell wants to lose 14 in a row? But we’re not going to just give up on our work ethic. That’s not going to happen. As a matter of fact, we’re just going to increase it.

“Even if we’re winning, we should be striving to get better. But we’re not going to give up on our work ethic. We’re going to work the way we work. We’re going to prepare the way we prepare. We’re going to leave it all on the field. If we win tonight, we win tonight, and if not, we’ll get better tomorrow.”

It’s hard to see any signs of growth from the White Sox in this first year of their current rebuilding plan, and the players haven’t responded to Grifol. The season took a turn following the White Sox's 4-1 loss to the Orioles on May 26 in Chicago, after which Grifol referred to his team as “f---ing flat” against right-hander Kyle Bradish.

Those comments were met with disagreement from the White Sox players, who seemed to resent their manager airing out his criticism to the media. One day later, Grifol doubled down on his words to reporters.

That all came 10 losses ago for the White Sox, who haven’t won a game since. Their lineup for Friday against the Red Sox features just one hitter – veteran outfielder Corey Julks – who has a batting average over .250 this season.

Southpaw Garrett Crochet is the starter and has been one of the few bright spots for this team, going 5-5 with a 3.49 ERA. Veteran right-hander Erick Fedde, a surprising breakout story this season, is 4-1 with a 3.29 ERA. But only four other White Sox pitchers have earned a win this season.

The White Sox have won just five games this season when someone other than Crochet or Fedde starts the game. The 31-year-old Fedde is likely to be traded prior to the deadline on July 30, along with veteran outfielder Tommy Pham and perhaps even All-Star slugger Luis Robert. Dealing away the 26-year-old Robert would underscore how dramatic and difficult their rebuilding plan has become.

White Sox general manager Chris Getz wasn't made available to reporters Friday and hasn’t spoken to the media since May 24. In that stretch, he hasn't taken the opportunity to offer his support for Grifol, whom he inherited as manager.

Through another season of great struggles, White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf hasn’t spoken publicly since late last August as he made comments that stirred up even more fan frustration. The White Sox are averaging 15,027 fans per home game in 2024, their lowest mark since 1989.

The White Sox's woes have become a spectacle in their own right as the team continues its undesirable chase of historic futility. There's a lot of season left, but they're currently on pace to become the worst team in baseball history.

The storm is only getting stronger for Grifol and the White Sox, and there doesn’t seem to be hope on the horizon.

Chris Emma covers the Bears, Chicago’s sports scene and more for 670TheScore.com. Follow him on Twitter @CEmma670 .