SI

White Sox Announcer Gets Roasted for Laughably Optimistic Statement About Team’s Form

One broadcaster is choosing to look at the glass half full in Chicago.

Kristen Wong

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
In this story:

The MLB-worst Chicago White Sox just suffered their ninth-straight loss in Friday’s 12–5 defeat against the Milwaukee Brewers. One Sox broadcaster, however, is keeping his head up.

NBC Sports Chicago play-by-play announcer John Schriffen, who replaced Jason Benetti in January, turned into the butt of jokes on social media when he made an optimistic statement about the team that arguably bordered on a state of denial.

During Friday’s game, Schriffen told booth mate Steve Stone, “It feels like this run the White Sox are on, we’re catching teams at the wrong time.”

A pause was drawn out before Stone replied, chuckling, “Well, there’s that. There’s a few other reasons. But that’s certainly one of them.”

The White Sox fell to 15-43 following their loss to Milwaukee having dropped 13 of their last 14 games. Schriffen seemingly tried to chalk up their abysmal form to scheduling woes, though one could argue that if that’s the case, the White Sox’s entire MLB schedule is doing them in. 

Chicago owns a league-worst -134 run differential and went 6–24 in the months of March and April and 9–19 in May, their worst start in franchise history.

Fans on X (formerly known as Twitter) roasted Schriffen for his fanciful theories.

Published |Modified
Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

Home/MLB