Why did the White Sox fire manager Pedro Grifol? And what's next?

The baseball nestled harmlessly into the mitt of left fielder Andrew Benintendi, and the tungsten burden of history evaporated into the East Bay evening.

On Tuesday, the Chicago White Sox, losers of 21 straight ballgames, did the other thing. Upon the final out, Sox skipper Pedro Grifol made his way through the visiting dugout at the Oakland Coliseum, and for the first time in nearly a month, he shook some hands. A brief but telling grin flashed across his well-worn face.

The White Sox would not reach the modern MLB record of 23 consecutive defeats. For a moment, for a night, Grifol and his players could breathe. A darker, even more undesirable pock — the worst single-season record in modern MLB history — still lingered on the horizon. But infamy, for the time being, was dodged.

The manager himself wasn’t so lucky.

Two days after capturing their first victory since July 10, the White Sox dismissed Grifol. Hired in November 2022, Grifol was supposed to keep the club’s dwindling window of contention propped open. Instead, his White Sox tenure ends with a frightful mark of 89-190.

"As we all recognize, our team's performance this season has been disappointing on many levels," White Sox general manager Chris Getz said in a statement released Thursday morning. "Despite the on-field struggles and lack of success, we appreciate the effort and professionalism Pedro and the staff brought to the ballpark every day. These two seasons have been very challenging. Unfortunately, the results were not there, and a change is necessary as we look to our future and the development of a new energy around the team."

Neither Getz — who was internally promoted in August to replace the jettisoned Rick Hahn — nor Grifol is entirely responsible for the runaway freight train of woe that is the 2024 White Sox. A cocktail of organizational incompetence, mismanagement and under-investment over the past half-decade have morphed one of baseball’s most promising teams into a hollowed-out husk. This descent did not happen overnight. Rome did not crumble in a day.

In fact, the 2023 White Sox entered spring training with postseason expectations. Grifol’s arrival — and the corresponding departure of over-the-hill, Hall of Fame, septuagenarian skipper Tony La Russa — carried with it a legitimate sense of optimism. The previous winter, team owner Jerry Reinsdorf had inked the largest free-agent contract in franchise history: a five-year, $75 million deal with Benintendi. Chicago entered last season with playoff odds around 30%.

But injuries and underperformance from a host of key players led to a disastrous first half. Then came a trade-deadline sell-off, and with it, a string of embarrassing stories about the team’s culture. Reliever Keynan Middleton, dealt to the Yankees on July 30, claimed to have seen a rookie snoozing in the bullpen during a game. Hahn, who’d been GM for 11 years, was fired mid-August. The White Sox finished with 101 losses. It was ugly, and Grifol was at the helm through it all.

Heading into the 2024 season, it was clear as crystal to anybody with a roster sheet that these White Sox were a rebuilding bunch. Wins would be hard to come by. A successful season would hinge on improvements from younger players. Ideally, veterans would overperform and then reap strong prospect packages at the deadline. The postseason was an irrational pipe dream.

But according to persons around the White Sox, Grifol couldn’t soften his firm, demanding demeanor to fit the realities of a losing team. As this season crawled forward, his intensity rubbed some players the wrong way. Others bristled at his communication style. The mountain of losses made it all worse.

A fourth straight loss to Baltimore on May 26 pushed some of the discord into the public eye.

“Most of the guys were f***ing flat today,” Grifol told reporters after the game, in which Cy Young fourth-place finisher Kyle Bradish tossed seven no-hit frames against the Sox. “Unacceptable. That's all I got. Flat. Period. Major-league game, you gotta respect it."

Grifol doubled down on his comments the following day, which was poorly received within the clubhouse, according to multiple reports. The entire episode hinted at an unhealthy dynamic swirling beneath the surface. Things never really got better.

And then the White Sox lost 21 consecutive games.

Losing stinks. It’s exhausting and demoralizing, and it wears on people. It’s understandably difficult to maintain an upbeat visage beneath a hurricane. Grifol is not the first manager to be fired for failing to guide a sinking ship into harbor, nor will he be the last. But as the losses continued to pile up like bags of garbage on a front lawn, White Sox leadership was left with little leeway. It was abundantly clear that Grifol was no longer the best option to lead the White Sox into the hazy future.

Former MLB outfielder Grady Sizemore, who was serving on Grifol’s staff, was named interim manager on Thursday. The club likely waited to make the change until the streak ended so as to not stick Sizemore with such an unenviable burden. Getz also announced that the club will conduct a thorough search for a long-term replacement in the offseason.

Whomever the team chooses as its long-term solution, the White Sox face a long and arduous road back to contention. Finding a skipper with a more outward sense of patience and grace might be a first step in the right direction.