One more pile of crud: 'Fan Appreciation Night' at Guaranteed Rate Field

The view from my seat about 45 minutes before Wednesday's home finale.

The White Sox concluded the home portion of their schedule Wednesday with a 10-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

The Sox (62-96) were 30-51 at Guaranteed Rate Field in 2018, and in some respects, it's a miracle they won 30. I personally attended 13 of the 81 home games -- including Wednesday's -- and saw the Sox lose 10 times and win three times.

Most of the 10 losses were just like the one Wednesday.

The Sox were never in this game. For some strange reason, it was a "bullpen day," even though Reynaldo Lopez could have started on regular rest. He instead will get the start Friday afternoon in the first game of a day-night doubleheader at Minnesota.

Jace Fry started Wednesday, and gave up a home run to Francisco Lindor on the third pitch of the game.

So, Fry (2-3) gets the loss, even though that was the only run he allowed. The Indians got a run off Aaron Bummer in the third inning, then three in the fourth and two in the fifth off Ryan Burr, and three in the sixth off Jeanmar Gomez.

By the bottom of the sixth inning, Cleveland led, 10-0.

Some Fan Appreciation Night, huh?

In the case of Burr, he's 24 years old, so perhaps the poor outing can be chalked up as a learning experience. The veteran Gomez, however, can take a hike, as we've previously discussed on this blog.

Here's the real unfortunate thing about this game: You had 25,598 people in the stands on a Wednesday night in late September, for a 95-loss team that's been out of the pennant race since the first week of May.

That's a nice crowd under those circumstances, but the Sox basically punted the game before it started with this "bullpen day" baloney. They didn't even try to win this game.

As a fan, that's frustrating. You're driving to the ballpark knowing the Sox are going to get their asses kicked. As most readers of this blog know, I'm a longtime partial season-ticket holder. My message to Sox brass in a lot of the surveys they have sent me has been a simple one: OK, you think you're going to be good in three years. I get it. But I'm spending money on tickets *now*, and the product that's being put on the field does not qualify as Major League Baseball.

The Sox should have thrown Lopez on Wednesday and tried to win their last home game before a decent crowd of fans. They should have saved the tanking bullpen day for one of the road games in Minnesota.

Wednesday's loss represented one more middle finger at the paying customers, who have endured miles upon miles of hell in 2018.