With Sunday\u2019s 3-2 loss to the Padres,\u00a0the White Sox\u00a0have wrapped their 2025 home schedule. There are still games in New York and Washington, D.C. to be played before the season is over, but the only possible noteworthy achievement remaining will be whether the Sox can avoid reaching at least 100 losses for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n
That is the kind of progress the organization needs to make; realistically, they could still be a few years from serious contention, but tallying triple-digit losses for too many consecutive seasons can deflate a fanbase that\u2019s already been gritting its collective teeth since at least 2022.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not lost on the guys in the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last few years it\u2019s been tough to be a fan,\u201d Andrew Benintendi told CHGO. \u201cWe haven\u2019t been winning many games [\u2026] Obviously not the year we wanted this year, but it is a step in the right direction. And I think there\u2019s something to be excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the most obvious measure, yes, the White Sox have taken a step forward. They passed their 2024 win total all the way back on August 2, but that bar was so low that it would have taken a truly remarkable combination of things going wrong for the Sox for them\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to have done better than they did last year.<\/p>\n Sunday\u2019s loss means the Sox have 98 on the season, and with road series against the Yankees and Nationals ahead of them, it will be tough to avoid losing two more times in their next six games. It\u2019s likely that they will finish with a record almost exactly like \u2014 if not right on the nose with it \u2014 their 61-101 record from two years ago.<\/p>\n That would, again, represent movement in the right direction, but it doesn\u2019t come without a cost. The coaching staff and players believe the fans are buying into what\u2019s happening in the organization to keep moving forward, but that doesn\u2019t mean they still don\u2019t need to see different results.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they see what we\u2019re starting to build here, and I think they\u2019re excited for it,\u201d Sean Burke said.<\/p>\n Ballpark attendance has understandably dwindled over the past few seasons, but like the team\u2019s overall record, the number of people coming to games is trending upward just a little.\u00a0The Sox will finish their 2025 home season ranked 13th out of 15 American League teams in attendance, which is a five-spot drop from where they ranked just three years ago. But with Sunday\u2019s total of 24,205 fans in the seats at the Rate, the Sox will have drawn 1,445,750 fans to Rate Field in 2025, which is a slight uptick from 2024\u2019s 1,380,733.<\/p>\n \u201cIt kind of gives us the motivation to be better,\u201d Benintendi said. \u201cThe more games you win, the more people show up. I played here against the White Sox in 2021 when they won the division, and the place was rocking. They\u2019re passionate about the team, and it\u2019d be great to put a winner back out there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n But there\u2019s probably some reason for optimism, at least compared to where things stood a year ago. The 2025 season has been a showcase of some of the organization\u2019s up-and-coming talents, like Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Miguel Vargas, Kyle Teel, and Edgar Quero, and if for nothing else sometimes, Sox fans have shown up to see the kids play.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been great the entire summer,\u201d manager Will Venable said of the fans. \u201cIt\u2019s been great to see them identify with our growing club, and [we\u2019re] really excited about the thought even beyond today. This fanbase and our group, just excited about the thought of them coming out and supporting us when we have better results is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n That will probably depend on what the offseason looks like. General manager Chris Getz has been clear about his intention to keep Luis Robert, Jr. on the team in 2026, despite his down year and ongoing issues with staying healthy, as well as the $20 million team option price tag for next year. Robert, Jr. could still be July trade fodder, but that\u2019s been a longstanding possibility dangled in front of Sox fans for years without coming to fruition.<\/p>\n Holding on to Robert, Jr. could mean the Sox don\u2019t spend as much on free agents this offseason, but the smarter timeline for them is to hold off on diving into the free agent market until the 2026\/2027 offseason anyway. Yes, there are labor concerns going into \u201927 with the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire in December 2026, but that\u2019s a future concern and not one the Sox front office can do anything about this offseason.<\/p>\n That said, Robert, Jr. is probably not the guy who will have the most significant impact on the long term health of the franchise. Instead, it\u2019s the aforementioned burgeoning core of young talent, many of them acquired via trade in the past couple of seasons. Under new manager Venable, the Sox have taken a very big step forward this season, even if they don\u2019t avoid 100 losses. And, unlike a year ago, the vision of a successful Sox future is much more clear than it was at the end of last season. There\u2019s an identifiable core of young talent, a skilled manager at the helm, and new ownership coming who are expected to open the pocketbook for the necessary free agents.<\/p>\n Put all of that together, and it feels increasingly like the darkest Sox days are well behind them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Sunday\u2019s 3-2 loss to the Padres,\u00a0the White Sox\u00a0have wrapped their 2025 home schedule. There are still games in New York and Washington, D.C. to be played… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":96862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n