MINNEAPOLIS — The dark space below the .500 mark is no place to be.
Not for a team in its championship window. Not for an organization that six years ago admitted to being ‘‘mired in mediocrity’’ and launched a rebuild that left its fans waiting through seasons of 67-95, 62-100 and 72-89 in 2017-19 before finally reaching an American League wild-card series in 2020.
With a punchless 4-0 loss Tuesday to the Twins, the free-falling White Sox’ losing streak hit seven games.
‘‘We didn’t have a good approach,’’ acting manager Miguel Cairo said. ‘‘It’s hard to win games when you don’t score runs.’’
The loss, in which Twins right-hander Bailey Ober (2-3) allowed only two hits and had a career-high 10 strikeouts in 7⅓ innings, followed series sweeps by the younger, livelier, hungrier AL Central champion Guardians and last-place Tigers.
The Sox are plunging toward a totally unexpected losing season after two on the right side of .500. The latest loss dropped them to 76-78 and let the third-place Twins (75-79) creep to within one game of them for second.
Cairo, who was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in defense of starter Lance Lynn (five innings, four runs, 10 hits), has a clear goal in mind.
‘‘I want to finish over .500; I don’t think we’re a below-.500 team,’’ Cairo said before the game.
We shall see about that.
The Sox play three games against the Padres in San Diego after this series, then finish with three at home against the Twins, who with a major-league-high 32 stints on the injured list don’t want to hear about the Sox’2022 injury woes.
It could be the eighth losing season in the last 10 for a franchise that has made it to only three postseasons (2008, 2020 and 2021) since the 2005 World Series. They won once in each of those series to go with eight losses, falling well short of the parades general manager Rick Hahn talked about during the planning stages of the rebuild.
Fans were willing to let bygones be bygones when the Sox, after patchwork upgrades just good enough to maybe be in contention around the trade deadline, did what everyone thought was the right thing by tearing things down to the studs. They traded their most valuable assets — Chris Sale, Jose Quintana and Adam Eaton — for a stable of prospects who thrust their lagging minor-league system to the top of the organization charts.
The Sox lost on purpose, and the fans didn’t care, eating up every news item they could find on prospects Luis Robert, Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease and Eloy Jimenez.
After the prospects graduated to the major-league team, the Sox’ organizational rankings fell back to the bottom. But the expected payoff at the major-league level came to an abrupt halt this season, manager Tony La Russa’s second and likely his last.
The Sox ‘‘busted their tail,’’ Lynn said, and made a push under Cairo after La Russa left for medical reasons, but then crashed.
‘‘You look at how hard we were going there, trying to catch up as it was,’’ Lynn said. ‘‘And then it just has kind of been a free-fall since. And that’s unfortunate.
‘‘It kind of wears on you, especially after everything you tried to do to get back into it. We were right there and then just haven’t played well since we got pretty close.’’
Giolito said that no matter how this season ends record-wise, the Sox need to reacquaint themselves with having fun. That might be difficult with losses mounting.
‘‘Be free and loose and get that good feeling, end on a high note and take that to the offseason for whatever individual work we need to do,’’ Giolito said.
