White Sox snap franchise-record 14-game losing streak with home win over Red Sox

The Chicago White Sox are bad this year, but they're officially not "15-losses-in-a-row" bad. For now.

The owners of the worst record in MLB broke a franchise-record 14-game losing streaking on Friday with a 7-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. Their record now sits at 16-48, still the worst in the big leagues by more than five games.

The announcers and home crowd were more than a little excited about the slide being over.

The win came courtesy of Garret Crochet, one of the two competent starting pitchers the White Sox have this season alongside Erick Fedde. The left-hander threw six innings, allowing two runs (one earned) and three hits while striking out 10. It was his fourth straight start throwing six innings, and eighth straight with at least five.

Meanwhile, the lowest-scoring offense in MLB finally managed to string some hits together. Big ones too. Luis Robert Jr., Gavin Sheets and Andrew Vaughn all hit home runs, with the latter two going back-to-back in the sixth.

Of course, Chicago couldn't get through the game without at least one embarrassing misstep. Crochet misfired on a pickoff attempt in the third inning and allowed a run to score, giving Boston an early lead.

With their sojourn into the record books now halted, the White Sox will face the Red Sox again Saturday in the third of a four-game series.

It's still looking very bad for the White Sox

Yes, the White Sox won, but everything that was being said about them Thursday, and the day before that, and so on, is still true.

Chicago isn't just a bad team; the White Sox are in the middle of a faceplant so loud it could ring through history by the time the season is over. Had the team lost Friday, its winning percentage would have surpassed the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics for the worst mark in modern MLB history (since 1900).

The White Sox are still the lowest-scoring team in MLB. They are still the worst pitching team in MLB by ERA+, with only the Coors Field-afflicted Colorado Rockies allowing more runs than them this season. They entered Friday with 25 out of 45 players to appear this season holding a negative WAR. They still have by far the worst run differential in MLB at minus-147.

What's more, the team's Pythagorean record of 17-47 (which is based on run differential) indicates the team isn't even suffering from much on-field bad luck. The White Sox really are this bad. And they could become even worse given that Crochet and Fedde are on the trade block, as is every other veteran player, such as Robert.

Now is probably when some Illinois residents should be asking themselves if this team deserves $1 billion.