The South Side tenures of Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks weren't perfection, but they are far more suited to headline a list focused on the great moments of the last six years of White Sox baseball, than they are to top a list of who to blame for its grueling decline.
Yet with the nature of media access to players, they're the ones most likely to reflect upon "a long-term window of contention" peaking with one division title before crash-landing into what looks like at least back-to-back 100-loss seasons. As the 2024 White Sox sank further Thursday night into the disaster they have become, Giolito and Hendriks returning with the Red Sox this weekend was occasion to reflect on how recently things were supposed to be a lot different.
"I don't know how I feel because that's now the A's and the White Sox, as soon as I've left have just struggled a little bit," said Hendriks, donning a shirt that read 'FAH Q' in a joking nod to the local accent of his new home city. "You've got to take it on the chin. You've got to realize that I was part of that. It wasn't that guy, it wasn't this guy, it was that united group and we failed. We failed the city. We failed the front office. We failed everyone around. We failed the fan base. It's a tough pill to swallow."
"Part of me is always going to root for the team, just because I was here for so long," said Giolito. "We have that window where we could have really done something special. We just didn't capitalize on it. So it's always something I"m going to look back on and be like, 'Damn, I wish we could have done that.'"
Both Giolito and Hendriks are sidelined with injuries for this series, and will play no part in extending the White Sox's franchise-record 14-game losing streak. After avoiding major arm issues for the duration of his Sox career, Giolito said he was initially stunned that he wound up needing a season-ending internal brace procedure ("Tommy John Plus," as Hendriks calls it). Conversely, Hendriks' familiar blend of frankness and humor simultaneously makes you wonder if his drive to return last season should have been halted, and if it even could have been.
“I will never say that I rushed back last year," Hendriks said. "If anything, [my UCL] was torn before I went on my rehab assignment. I refused to not get back last year. That was never an option. And so I was going to grind it out, gut it out, not tell anybody and just kind of go forward. But yeah, I probably blew it out before that. It wasn’t me rushing back. I threw more bullpens than anybody else. It was just unfortunately I wasn’t recovering as well as I used to. The surgeon got in there and said, ‘You should have had this probably a long time ago.’ It took me 15 years to tear it after my initial [partial] tear, and hopefully now it’ll be another 15 years in me before it goes again."
While Giolito is done for the season, Hendriks was in typical form insisting he could be back by August. After openly stumping for the White Sox to pick up his 2024 contractual option at the end of last year, Hendriks still maintains he could have been a useful clubhouse influence for this team, but is unsurprised that a rebuilding club didn't pay up for two months of a 35-year-old reliever.
Besides, both Hendriks and Giolito are still connected enough with old teammates to echo that the clubhouse environment is not the problem. Not anymore, at least.
"The vibes in there are great," Hendriks said. "Unfortunately the wins aren't exactly coming as expected, but it's a better clubhouse to be around than it was last year. That's the first step. You've got to get good people around to get the right kind of mentality coming in and everything will grow from there."
"I feel like the culture at the very end started to really -- we were trying to develop something -- and it started to really kind of just dwindle, which in my personal opinion, was kind of sad to see," Giolito said of the end of his White Sox tenure. "I know the question gets asked 'Why did this happen? Why did it not come together?' It's like, sometimes it just doesn't, you know?"
This piece was written right in the middle of Thursday night's bloodletting, so take it with a grain of salt. But it seems like it just doesn't come together pretty often around these parts, to a degree that breeds skepticism that it ever will without more seismic and transformative organizational changes.
But was barely a year ago this stadium felt like the center of the baseball world, when Hendriks made his unfathomable return to the field after recovering from Stage IV lymphoma. His run of meet-and-greets with fellow cancer survivors across the country continued apace on Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field. And even with his peak performance wavering after the 2021 season, Giolito is a developmental beneficiary of the protracted struggles the White Sox are willing to put their fans through, where character is built whether you like it or not.
"I grew up here," Giolito said. "This is where I experienced the lowest of the lows of my career and I experienced the highest of highs of my career. And I wouldn't trade any of that for anything else. I feel like obviously I grew as a pitcher and a baseball player, but that's also where I kind of grew as a man. So I have so much love for the city. I have so much love for the White Sox organization and the opportunities they gave me."
In a similar vein, Giolito beamed when asked about his former teammates Garrett Crochet and Erick Fedde heading up the White Sox rotation, and answering years of doubt about their viability in that role. And in a similar vein, the White Sox are 15-48, performing at an embarrassing level even in the context of a season where contention was never a real goal, and serving as a home where players know they can find opportunity can wear thin its own ways.
"It’s not a small task," Hendriks said when asked of his former teammate Chris Getz's chances of turning it around. "You’re trying to not only redefine an organization but you’re trying to redefine the mantra of how it’s been brought up. It’s not an easy task. But in saying that, he’s not too far out of the game, so I think he understands the player side a bit. And hopefully that can translate into getting the right frame of mind around the minor league guys that are going to be brought up.
"That’s where I think it starts. You need to get those guys up who know how to fail. You need to get the guys coming through the minor leagues who are able to be knocked down a couple pegs with those egos. That’s what I think is going to big for the organization is when those guys come up, if they’re told to do something, they do it no questions asked and don’t bite back. Hopefully it moves in that direction.”
In a rare instance, Giolito had less to say on Getz's prospects. But his initial response cut to the heart of the matter.
“I don’t know, man. What a question."
