White Sox rookie Jonathan Cannon lived through, learned from historically bad season

DETROIT — Wait, there are positives?

To this catastrophe of a year of 121 losses?

The White Sox have to mine them from somewhere to keep their sanity, to maintain glimmers of hope for the future as they process what just happened as they go through the offseason to cleanse themselves from the stink and believe that things will somehow be better in 2025.

“This offseason and probably the rest of our careers, we’re going to be asked about it,” right-hander Jonathan Cannon said of breaking the 1962 Mets’ modern-era record for defeats. “And it is what it is.”

Freaking brutal — despite a 5-1 finish capped by the Sox’ 9-5 victory Sunday against the playoff-bound Tigers at Comerica Park — is what it was.

But Cannon (5-10), a third-round pick by the Sox in 2022, made 23 starts and finished with a 4.49 ERA in Detroit, where on June 23 he got ambushed for eight runs (five earned) while getting only three outs in an 11-2 Sox loss. Cannon was pitching with a five-run lead Sunday and whittling down the ERA with four scoreless innings before he walked the bases full in the fifth and gave up a grand slam to Kerry Carpenter, cutting the Sox’ lead to 5-4.

“I just started to run out of gas a little bit,” Cannon said. “I just lost my feel out there. Maybe trying a little bit too hard to get in the zone. Just had to get back in the zone, and Carpenter hit it out.”

“You saw him taking deep breaths and struggling to throw strikes; he was losing steam,” interim manager Grady Sizemore said. “And he’s stretched further than he has ever gone. These are hard innings late in the year. And I could tell he was gassed.”

Cannon ranks third on the Sox in Baseball Reference wins above replacement at 1.9, behind pitchers Erick Fedde (now on the Cardinals) and Garrett Crochet, a fine achievement for a rookie.

Sosa’s hot finish

Lenyn Sosa hit his eighth homer and had two other hits to become the third Sox player since Yoan Moncada and Romy Gonzalez at Oakland in 2022 to have three hits, three runs and three RBI in a game. He finished the season with a .394 average in his last 21 games.

“It’s marvelous,” Sosa said of his finish.

Moncada’s invisible exit

Moncada finished his two-week end-of-season stay where he started: on the bench. He will be a free agent when the Sox decline his option for next season. Moncada appeared in one extra-inning game, Sept. 18 at the Angels.

“Him coming in so late, and having two other guys [Bryan Ramos and Miguel Vargas] in the same position,” Sizemore said, “taking at-bats away from them would not be fair to the team and to the organization.”

It’s not yet finalized, but Moncada is leaning toward playing for Ozzie Guillen in the Venezuelan winter league.

This and that

By going 6„ scoreless innings in his last start Thursday, Chris Flexen reached 160 innings to activate an incentive clause in his contract worth $250,000, he acknowledged. Crochet, with 146, was second on the team in innings.

† Three sold-out crowds at Comerica Park marked the largest attendance in Detroit, 128,108, since a series against the Sox in 2012.

† The Tigers will play in Houston on Tuesday in a best-of-three wild-card series, with the winner facing the Guardians in an American League Division Series.