A tantalizing proposition: Today is the day the White Sox season began

A dominant Crochet start, potent hitting and clutch closing, made the moribund season start almost melt away

The gallows humor of the South Side Sox social media accounts has been in full swing for at least a good month now, given the 2024 team’s horrific rank among teams in franchise history — and for a very healthy stretch into May, its pitiful rank among all clubs in major league history. I am mostly responsible for what goes out on Twitter, including this backhanded dis of any team that dares lose to the bumbling White Sox:

Well, in that vein, tonight’s win may mark the day the 2024 Chicago White Sox season began.

For six weeks now, the White Sox have been so far down into sub-replacement level, rats are filing eviction notices. The roster is made up almost completely of AAAA talent, with pitchers as patchwork as they come, hitters tapping a collective -2.7 WAR with no regular at better than 0.5. Frankly, this team should not even have won the 10 games they have heading into Friday’s action.

But yet, against all odds and spitting on the cupcakes of so many who anticipate this year’s club setting Worst Ever records that haven’t even been invented yet, this White Sox team seems to have taken a turn.

Pregame, you might have already been smelling the salts, pointing quickly to two straight wins, or four of six, winning two for the last four series, or even holding a 4-4 record in May. But c’mon, that’s damning with the faintest of praise, especially when any team at any time — yes, even this Chico’s Bail Bonds outfit playing on the South Side — can faceplant into a win.

But tonight’s 6-3 triumph, a second straight Chicago scoff of a first-place Cleveland club that started the series 15 games up on Chicago and outclassing not just this Chicago Nine but much of the American League, feels like something different.

The talent has not gotten any better, really, especially once the booster rocket of 36-year-old Tommy Pham burns off and leaves the player without a full season at .800 OPS for five years in its wake. The farm has some promise, as already evidenced by strong MLB debuts from starters Nick Nastrini and Jonathan Cannon and a nice first week from Birmingham-blossomed Bryan Ramos. But as the second starts of Nastrini and Cannon showed us, and as “the book” on young Bryan circulates, a team can only coast so far on the sugary snacks of the young. Veteran returns of Luis Robert Jr. or Yoán Moncada? Sure, those will help, but when, and for how long?

The White Sox are cruising now, as a .500 team outplaying its talent — somewhat dramatically. Rub your eyes all you want, but 11 wins from this ragtag clownery (come ON, the team’s total WAR is ... -0.2!) is some sort of Deep Sea Scrolls miracle. I’m not a believer, as such, but unless the Bertucci Brothers are packing something from the forbidden shelf into their pregame spread pasta pockets, this White Sox team is gathering momentum. Beating a full-strength Cleveland team two straight, in games that weren’t particularly in doubt, is legitimate progress.

Tonight, Garrett Crochet again took the hero turn in this decisive, 6-3 win over the ALC’s best. He spun six innings of a career-high 11-K ball, with nary a free pas, and gave up five hits, just one for extra bases. He threw three ground outs and two fly balls; insert White Sox defense joke here, but you could forgive the seven players behind him for chaise-lounging it on defense, because they’re hardly necessary when Crochet is on.

And on the other side of things, a player who didn’t surface in the essay above the fold because let’s be honest, his consistent wizardry doesn’t fit the narrative of The Season Starts Now: Jordan Leasure, who came on for a four-out save, the second fire extinguished in his career, and again, there was almost no doubt he’d get it done.

These two arms are ones you will see on the next great White Sox team. In fact, in our fantasy scenario born of these 11 wins as of May 10, those arms will be part of the reason the White Sox will become great again.

On the hitting side, it was more of a mixed bag, with the nagging inability to coax free passes still present. But the successes were many, including three solo shots, haymakers to stun Cleveland’s comeback aspirations. Andrew Vaughn, who to a one fans have abandoned and not without cause, saw his batting average shoot to .196 on his first home run of the season. It matters not that his shot was about as much of an excuse-me as you might have imagined it over these eight weeks of waiting.

What a win; credit due. To hit 70 wins, a fatuous aim just a matter of days ago, this club would need to play 59-64 the rest of the way. This team, punching Cleveland in the mouf two straight days, can accomplish that. While nothing to celebrate, 70 victories is still a healthy jump from 2023 and would far outpace what this team is capable of on paper.

We’ll see.

Tonight was encouraging enough of a result, we’ll suspend the Futility Watch. (A six-week descent into the worst of White Sox history does not dissolve over a couple of inspiring wins, but for the first time since April 12, this club is not the owner of the worst South Side start of all time.)