White Sox fall to Cubs on walk-off HR for franchise-record 13th straight loss

You know what's worse than blowing a multi-run lead against your crosstown rival to lose your 12th straight game? Doing the same exact thing for your 13th straight loss.

In consecutive games, the Chicago White Sox watched a 5-1 lead turn into a 7-6 loss to the Chicago Cubs. On Tuesday, it was an eighth-inning rally capped by an Ian Happ RBI double that sunk the South Siders.

On Wednesday, it was Cubs designated hitter Mike Tauchman delivering his first career walk-off homer.

The White Sox took their 5-1 lead Wednesday via a four-run rally featuring six singles in the fourth inning. The Cubs then proceeded to chip away, first with a run-scoring double-play by Cody Bellinger and a run-scoring balk in the fifth, then with another rally in the seventh inning to take a 6-5 lead.

White Sox shortstop Paul DeJong tied it in the eighth with a solo homer, but that only opened his team up for heartbreak in the ninth.

The White Sox are really bad, and they could get worse

With 13 straight losses, the White Sox have seen their record fall to an MLB-worst 15-47 (next-worst: the Miami Marlins at 21-41) and tied a franchise record with 13 straight losses. Chicago's most recent losing streak this long was a 13-gamer in August 1924.

It has literally been almost 100 years since the White Sox lost this many games in a row.

This hasn't been an uneventful losing streak, either. In addition to two comeback losses to the Cubs, the White Sox have managed to somehow lose a game via infield fly rule interference (an umpire ruling reportedly reprimanded by MLB) and lose in a way that resulted in outfielder Tommy Pham proclaiming he can beat people up after the game.

Expectations were low in Chicago heading into this season after the team went 61-101 last year, added only a few players of note such as Pham and Erick Fedde and traded away top starting pitcher Dylan Cease. Yet the Sox have fallen well short of what even their more cynical fans might have expected. Their current .242 win percentage puts them on pace for the second-worst record in MLB's modern era (since 1900), behind only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics.

And their struggles can't even be partially attributed to bad luck. Their minus-140 run differential is by far the worst in the league, with a Pythagorean record of 16-46. They are exactly one win worse than where they should be, judging from the runs they're scoring and allowing. Their .610 team OPS is the worst in MLB. Their 4.90 ERA is second-worst, behind only the Coors Field-afflicted Colorado Rockies.

Even by the tank-heavy current standards of MLB, this team is a sight to behold, and it could get worse. Top remaining players Luis Robert Jr., Garret Crochet and Fedde are all reportedly available for a trade.