ESPN analyst slams White Sox, says they deserve record losing streak

The Chicago White Sox have become such a punching bag for sports media that even First Take is getting in on the action. We know ESPN’s premier morning show doesn’t often veer into the baseball side of things, often preferring to talk about the Dallas Cowboys, NFC East, and the NBA at large. But with Stephen A. Smith absent from Tuesday’s edition, Clinton Yates took charge.

The White Sox came into Tuesday having lost 21 straight games, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to get better anytime soon. 670 The Score’s Dan Bernstein and Laurence Holmes have debated whether the team’s manager, Pedro Grifol, should have to “wear” this disaster unfolding right before our very eyes. But we haven’t seen many sports media figures go to the lengths that Yates did.

After Courtney Cronin went on an impassioned rant, lamenting the fans who waste their time watching this product and going in on the White Sox for not trading star pitcher Garrett Crochet at last week’s MLB Trade Deadline, Yates brought up a point that few have. The Andscape columnist, commentator, and host said that the White Sox deserve this.

“Listen, this is what the problem is, is that they deserve this as a franchise,” Yates explained. “There’s so much that’s gone wrong. I went to a game last week, I saw them hit a triple and a homer from the White Sox in the same game…I was so stunned I saw two extra base hits by the White Sox, I called my dad and said, ‘You won’t believe what I just saw.’ Anyway, the point is that this franchise has not been taken seriously for a long time for a couple of different reasons, and Tony La Russa’s involvement is at the top of the list.

“It’s hard for me to explain without getting too far into this, but he’s a friend of the owner. And when he had a lot of life situations that took him away from the franchise, people said, ‘OK, I guess we’re done with this because, hello, your boy is not gonna be around.’ Guess who’s still part of the franchise in some way or another? I’m not calling it a curse because that guy’s a baseball lifer, and he’s done a lot in the game — La Russa has. But there’s just something very unserious about how they do everything.

“The most serious thing they ever did is they became the first team in the big leagues to put nets behind all of the fences. They were the first team to do that at Guaranteed Rate Park. That’s it; that’s the only progressive thing they’ve done in 15 years, it seems like they. Yes, they fired Kenny Williams and their GMs. They just don’t know how to run a franchise like a big league operation.”

It’s why they’re 27-88 and 41.5 games out of first place.

“The fact that they got caught off guard by the Crochet situation explains everything you need to know,” Yates continued. “What else were you going to know if you didn’t know what he wanted to do?”

Yates is referring to reports that indicated that the 25-year-old Crochet wanted a contract extension if traded, specifically to secure a postseason pitching role. Crochet also expressed reluctance to pitch out of the bullpen due to health concerns.

In typical White Sox fashion, the front office was ill-equipped to handle the demands of a star player.

“Break the record for America,” said Yates. “We need it; we deserve it.”

[ First Take ]

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