AN OUTRAGEOUS SEASON: ARMS KILL DODGERS, FILL-IN-LOSS SOX TRASHED BY OZZIE

It won’t matter if Ohtani makes $700 million with no playoff rotation, and in Chicago, a White Sox team trying to avoid 121 losses must hear a fool — the Jarren Duran of his day — rip all-time infamy

     This is not a bet to make on your phone. Will the Chicago White Sox win 12 or fewer of their final 40 games and become the first 121-loss team in our vomitous lives? Or will the Los Angeles Dodgers keep shattering records in scheduling Tommy John surgeries for a disintegrating pitching staff? They are the biggest stories of the baseball season, one sickly and the other petrifying.

     All while the Cleveland Guardians, who have a payroll of $106.4 million that ranks 23rd in the majors, enter the final six weeks with the sport’s best record thanks to a rookie manager named Stephen Vogt who calls himself “just a pretty face.” Isn’t it time to ask if they can win it all, for the first time in 76 years? Which would happen while the White Sox face post-game criticism from the Jarren Duran of his time? And as the Dodgers cover up a creepy crisis in a gambling-banned state and let Shohei Ohtani say he didn’t know Ippei Mizuhara, his close pal and hip-side partner for years, made 19,000 wagers between September 2021 and January 2024?

     Crazy as it is to see the Guardians make a real run, while turning a clubhouse into a wacky madhouse, I will focus on Ozzie Guillen and Andrew Friedman. One should not be employed and outlines why the Sox are the worst franchise in sports. The other defines why the wildest spenders in the industry struggle to win a World Series and are more involved with the injured list than winning games.

     If you wonder why Jerry Reinsdorf has lost his blundering way in the millennium, which is almost 25 years old, one hint comes when Guillen is employed in the studio. Nothing explains why the Sox have livor mortis than the man who praised Fidel Castro in Miami’s Little Havana — and still laughs off describing a media member as a “f—ing fag.” In a town that counted Bill Murray and Bob Newhart as comedians, Chicago has deteriorated into believing Guillen is funny. The sports goofs think so. Media losers think so. In truth, Ozzie is why the city has shrunk into futile stupidity while papers and radio stations fight for puny numbers.

     He happened to win a championship in 2005 as a manager, which didn’t overcome a previous Series thrown to sharks in 1919. When he ran the team, he’d make comments about men and women — in baseball and the media — that should have led to lengthy suspensions if not his firing. The only columnist to call him out was me, in a town of fanboys. Other reporters enjoyed sucking up to him, like high-school sheep following a class clown. I ripped him constantly, such as when he thought it was fair play to throw pitches at batters’ heads. His response was to slur me. Not once has he apologized.

     How freaky to see him destroy manager Pedro Grifol, who was fired last week after losing 21 straight games, by defending himself as a blackballed savior of the past. The reason Guillen was shipped away by Reinsdorf involved his alcohol-related messes, which included his own sons taking online shots at front-office boss Ken Williams. Reinsdorf chose to hire him as a broadcaster after he was fired a second time by the Marlins. Problem is, we see how professional organizations handle Guillen-type cases, such as the Boston Red Sox, who issued a two-game suspension to Duran after he said to a heckling fan, “Shut up, you f—ing faggot.”

     “I’ve had some fans reach out to me and tell me that they’re disappointed in me, and I just want to let them know that I’m sorry for my actions,” the outfielder said. “There was a heckler heckling me the entire game, and I let the moment get the best of me. Just said something I shouldn’t be saying.”

     The Blizzard of Oz seems to think he can say what he wants in a place that doesn’t know better. Does he not realize he impugns the organization every time he opens his mouth? From Reinsdorf on down to the public-relations department to the few souls in the stands, Guillen is a blight on respectable behavior. The Sox are aching to avoid all-time infamy at 29-93, within grasp of the 1962 New York Mets and their 120 losses. For an uglier losing percentage, the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics finished 36-117.

     “I don’t think anyone in this organization wants to be associated (with) a record we could potentially have,” general manager Chris Getz said.

     Who wants Ozzie mouthing off if they lose 121? He should be long gone while the interim manager, Grady Sizemore, tries to have fun with rare wins by heaving grocery items after a 12-2 triumph over the New York Yankees. “Everything from cereal to ketchup to baby powder,” outfielder Gavin Sheets said of the clubhouse scene. “He’s probably taking three showers tonight, but I think he enjoyed every second of it.”

     The Sox dropped season-ticket prices by a monstrous 10 percent for 2025. Would 70 percent make more sense? There is no assurance from senior vice president Brooks Boyer that Guillen will return next season. Average attendance has dropped to 18,231 — a loss of more than 6,400 since 2022 — and ranks among the bottom feeders.

     The Dodgers were supposed to win with ease after handing $700 million to Ohtani and $325 million to Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They could pay anything to anyone — but haven’t spent nearly enough on long-term arm specialists. River Ryan was the latest elbow to falter, with his ulnar collateral ligament strain leading to a Tommy John procedure. That means five pitchers have headed down that surgical path in little more than a year: Ryan, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Emmet Sheehan and Kyle Hurt. Yamamoto has been gone since mid-June with a rotator-cuff strain. Clayton Kershaw, 36, has returned after offseason shoulder surgery and pitched well Monday against Milwaukee yet failed to strike out a batter in 3 2/3 innings against San Diego. Walker Buehler is painful after two TJs. Bobby Miller is dealing with shoulder pain.

     “I think that we clearly don’t have the answers to taking care of pitchers and keeping them healthy,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I think the industry is doing the best they can to manage workload, manage pitch count, but clearly we don’t have it nailed. The bottom line is, injuries are way up.”

    What’s the use in throwing a masterpiece contract at Ohtani, who isn’t pitching after a second elbow surgery, if no one has a clue about an October rotation? Friedman, the baseball boss, has been robbed of value among pitchers more than any injury-plagued executive the last two years. Is this an issue with MLB’s pitch clock? What about COVID-19 and the pandemic?

     “We’re trying to figure out, is there an acute thing, is there an overarching issue to get at?” general manager Brandon Gomes told reporters. “Right now, I wish I had more answers, but we continue to dig. I think we’re seeing it across the industry, and we feel it more acutely when it happens to us, but I don’t think that this is all that unique. Are there any external studies from Major League Baseball? Should we do one? How do we best get at it, because it’s not a simple problem to solve. There are so many factors.”

     In the National League, it won’t matter how many tape-measure home runs are hit by Ohtani — who has 37 total — if the 71-50 Dodgers are chased by Arizona and San Diego in the West. Only 2 1/2 games separate the teams, meaning the postseason could be dicey with the Philadelphia Phillies still the pennant favorites. Who knew every game would feel huge in mid-August? Guggenheim Baseball Management fires cash in random shopping sprees. How will controlling partner Mark Walter respond if the Dodgers lose again?

     A casual fan might have trouble naming one of the Guardians. Better fans know Jose Ramirez, Josh Naylor, .323-hitting Steven Kwan and baseball’s best bullpen. Vogt might be Manager of the Year when he’s only feeling his way through a 72-49 season. Funny how he doesn’t have pitchers Uber-ing to the hospital. Funny how he doesn’t have Ozzie/Duran attacking him.

     “Human beings are emotional, so we all feel emotions and I'm not different, and you have to go through that cycle,” Vogt said. “So it's be upset, be angry, be sad, be this, be happy, process it, find a solution and what can I learn from it? And then you get to a point where it's like, ‘All right, I'm beating a dead horse, let's go to bed.’ ’’

     Those of us who’ve been to Cleveland ask what the team is protecting as Guardians. Apparently, Art Deco statues are on the Hope Memorial Bridge near the stadium. That works. At this point, the Dodgers are asking for help from McDreamy while the White Sox are awaiting my long-awaited ballpark entrance on Sept. 26, which could include the usual tire-shredders in the parking lot.

     It’s a baseball season worthy of what, exactly?

     The NFL preseason.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.