Yankees Suffer Their Most Appalling, Unbelievable Loss of the Season

The Yankees put forth what was, without a doubt, their worst performance of the season Monday night as they got blown out by a White Sox team that is racing to the finish line with a chance to be the worst team in MLB since the 1962 Mets who went 40-120 in their first season. You’re going to see this word several times down below, but it was unbelievable. Lets get to it.

Aug. 12: White Sox 12, Yankees 2

Over the course of a 162-game season, there are going to be a handful of absolutely disgraceful, inexplicable, inexcusable losses that every team is going to have to wear. And for the Yankees, man, there has certainly been a bunch of those in 2024.

But losing to the Chicago White Sox - who are currently on pace to finish with the worst winning percentage in the modern MLB era which dates back to 1903 - is a category unto itself.

This is the low point, folks. You can forget the other 49 losses they have this season, some that left us howling at the moon, or punching walls, or throwing remotes through TVs, or maybe all of the above. Losing to the White Sox tops them all.

This was such an embarrassment, it’s hard to fathom how unbelievable this night was.

I lasted four innings, and after watching the Yankees leave about 920 runners on base, and rubbing my eyes as Luis Gil was getting raked by a team with a cumulative batting average of .217 which put the Yankees into a 4-1 deficit, I told my lovely wife Christine, “Honey, watch whatever you want, I’m done.”

Off to bed I went, knowing full well when I got up this morning to watch the rest of the condensed game highlights, the Yankees had lost. There was never a doubt. To see that it finished 12-2, though, unbelievable.

And here’s what’s really sad: I wasn’t surprised by this. I told you in Monday’s newsletter that anything less than a sweep, and a sweep during which they didn’t really sweat, would be a disappointment. But I did not say that I expected that to happen because quite frankly, I half-expected they would shit the bed at least once against this glorified Triple-A team because that’s what the Yankees do.

They so often play down to the level of their competition, and when you level the playing field like that, then yeah, what happened Monday isn’t so crazy. It is the major leagues, and even a team as incredibly horrible as the White Sox has found a way to win 29 times this year. Just ask Alex Verdugo, who the beat reporters on scene did.

“Yeah, they’re one of the worst teams, if you want to put it that way, but these guys are still big leaguers,” said Alex Verdugo. “They can still have days where they’re clicking. … We just got to do a better job of coming out and cashing in those runs we had on base. Step on them early. With them getting out of those jams, we gave them a little bit of momentum and they ran with it today. I think this was a normal day. Another day where it just happens that we’re on the tough side of it. It’s baseball, right?

A normal day, Verdugo said. Those words came out of his mouth. The Yankees losing by 12 runs to the White Sox is a normal day. All together now … unbelievable.

“Every time you lose is a missed opportunity - we’re playing for a lot every freakin’ day,” Aaron Boone said. “So it sucks to lose. Really good, exhilarating when you win. But either way, you turn the page. The bottom line is credit to them - everything they hit tonight was a hit. I thought we played hard. … We just couldn’t punch through, we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark and we couldn’t stop them.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Given the lineup he was facing, Gil was absolutely pathetic. You knew from the very first batter he faced when he used eight pitches to walk Nicky Lopez that it wasn’t going to be his night. Before the first inning was over, a White Sox team that came into the game with a cumulative batting average of .217 made him throw 34 pitches and had three hits, and it was only because of a terrible send by the third-base coach that Gil escaped allowing just two runs as Verdugo gunned down threw Gavin Sheets at the plate for the third out.

➤ The White Sox didn’t score in the next two innings, but Gil was all over the place and threw 40 more pitches to put up two zeroes. But then in a ridiculous fourth inning he continued to struggle with everything and he gave up a long solo homer to Korey Lee, a double to Dominic Fletcher and an RBI single to Lopez. When it finally ended, he walked off the mound at 98 pitches and headed straight to the clubhouse.

➤ White Sox starter Ky Bush, a rookie lefty making his second start, looked like he belonged back in Double-A. The Yankees had seven hits and six walks in his 4.2 innings, and they scored only two runs. Two! It was egregious how bad they were with runners in scoring position, 2-for-18 with 16 men left on base. Like everything else that happened in this game, it was unbelievable that it could happen.

➤ Top of the first, Verdugo and Juan Soto walked, Aaron Judge had an RBI double so there were men on second and third with no outs and Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres popped out across Bush’s next six pitches to kill the threat. Right there was the first indication that this was going to be one of those nights. Oh, but I had no idea.

➤ Bases loaded in the second, Soto and Judge both flied out. Two men on in the third, Jazz Chisholm grounded into a double play. First two men walked in the fourth, Verdugo tries to bunt and pops out. Jesus Christ, what the hell is he bunting for against the White Sox? Soto grounds out, they walk Judge intentionally, Stanton whiffs to leave the bases loaded again.

➤ The only other run came in the fifth. Anthony Volpe drew his first walk in 80 plate appearances dating back to July 21 in the second inning and then another in the fourth (not that it mattered because he was left on base each time). And then in the fifth he broke his 0-for-23 slump with a single and Chisholm used his dynamic speed to manufacture a run. Chisholm had singled with two outs and stole second, then was stealing third when Volpe grounded one into the shortstop hole. Chisholm kept going and he barely beat the throw home to cut the deficit to 4-2. It was actually a pretty risky, borderline reckless play, but it went his way. Well, except for the fact that he hurt his elbow on the slide and had to come out of the game, so now we wait to see if he’s going to miss any time.

➤ How about Brian Cashman’s trade deadline acquisition of reliever Enyel De Los Santos? What a turd this guy is. After former White Sox reliever Tim Hill pitched the fifth and gave up a run, then threw a scoreless sixth, in came De Los Santos for the seventh. After retiring the leadoff man, he allowed six straight hits - double, double, single, single, single, three-run homer by rookie No. 9 hitter Brooks Baldwin who looks like he’s 17 years old and had just one previous homer in 20 MLB games. I’ve used the word unbelievable a few times, and yeah, more of that. De Los Santos has a 14.21 ERA in five appearances for the Yankees.

➤ How about Sheets’ night, 4-for-5, three doubles, four RBI. This guy is hitting .222 with a .653 OPS when the night began. Andrew Vaughn also had four hits including two doubles. Overall, the White Sox had 18 hits when their previous single-game high had been 14. They’ve had only 25 games where they even reached double digits in hits. And this was their season-high run total and they had only one other game where they reached double digits (11 against the equally horrible Rockies on June 29).

➤ You want some good news? At least we didn’t have to watch Clay Holmes pitch.