In lieu of a winning season, the White Sox can shoot for a winning month

11:08 AM CDT on March 26, 2026

James Fegan/Sox Machine

It's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Except for all the times where it actually was how you started.

That's been the story for the White Sox. They've lost 100 games in three consecutive seasons, and each one was doomed from the outset. Pedro Grifol started his managerial career 5-6 before a 10-game losing streak sent the Sox toward an eventual dismantling. Then they didn't even bother with the pretense in 2024, starting 3-22 en route to a record-setting 121-loss season.

Even Will Venable wasn't immune from this tendency in his first go-around, as the White Sox lost 10 of their first 12, and 16 of 20 before a more dignified brand of baseball took hold.

In each case, after one month, there was little reason for the casual fan to tune in for the next five.

March/April	W-L	Rank	Diff	Rank
2025	7-23	29	-32	23
2024	6-23	Last	-79	Last
2023	8-21	28	-65	29

This rebuild is the White Sox's third over the last dozen years, but besides the accumulation of scar tissue, another reason this one has felt particularly eternal is the erasure of any sense of progress from the end of the previous season. In contrast, the reconstruction era that Rick Renteria oversaw took three different shapes:

2017: Encouraging start, encouraging finish, don't ask about the middle, 67-95.

2018: Consistently ugly except for August, 62-100.

2019: .500 into June, upswing at end, 72-89.

And then they made the fake playoffs in 2020, and the real postseason in 2021, so everything tracked in a way that was believable and professional, even if it wasn't built to last.

It might be rare for development to look so linear, but it's also not supposed to be a flat circle. Yet every season looks the same, and while various White Sox personnel have placed a lot of emphasis on their 28-37 second half, it feels less tangible when it still didn't produce a winning month (they've been below .500 15 months straight), and the season opens with a roster that's far from set, particularly in the outfield.

That's why the Reese McGuire signing, as minor as a major league contract can be, feels like a welcome departure. It may be another year that Getz is unwilling to state a goal behind amorphous improvement, but even if McGuire is only around for a few weeks as a disproportionately compensated Kyle Teel fill-in, it's nice to see a sign that the team isn't willing to entirely wave away April as a practice month.

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As we begin our 21st season covering the White Sox, I want to thank all Sox Machine supporters who make it possible. For those who don't yet subscribe, here's some encouragement: Between now and Monday, use the promo code OPENINGDAY2026 for an extra free month on all annual plans. It's 10 months for the price of 12, and hopefully one of them will be over .500.