It was only April 24. It really didn’t seem like that big a deal.

But the White Sox had just lost six straight games on a miserable swing through Cleveland and Minnesota, and their losing streak stood at seven overall. Clearly, such an early-season slog hadn’t been anticipated and would not stand — not with the talent on this Sox team, not with its World Series aspirations.

So, how to fix things?

“Hit the reset button,” was pitcher Lucas Giolito’s idea.

That worked so well, the Sox returned to Guaranteed Rate Field and had a losing homestand against the hard-to-lose-to Royals and Angels.

“We still very much believe in this team’s talent,” general manager Rick Hahn said late that same month. “We believe in this team’s upside and are confident over time that that talent will prevail and take us to the level that we aspire to be at.”

It would become, of course, a Sox theme for the 2022 season — “believing” in the invisible as they went days, weeks and months without displaying anything resembling good baseball or embodying anything resembling a good baseball team.

“They get frustrated when they don’t play as good as they should,” manager Tony La Russa said as the Sox had fallen off from an encouraging 4-1 start to a somewhat unsettling 6-10 about 10% of the way through the season. “But the heart and guts are intact.”

Heart? Guts? As it turns out, those are perfect words to describe the first-place Guardians — the youngest team in baseball — who led the Sox by four games as the teams opened a three-game series on the South Side. The baby-faced Guardians clearly are the last ones to know they’re not supposed to win this thing and never were. They haven’t had a five-game division lead at any point, yet they’ve answered one little uprising after another from the Sox and the Twins without in any way, shape or form appearing to be a team in serious danger of fizzling down the stretch.

The Sox aren’t out of it. If they sweep the Guardians, they’ll be only a game back. If they follow that by sweeping the lowly Tigers, they’ll finally have put together the kind of homestand they’ve been alluding to for five months. If, if. Does anybody really want to bet on these “ifs”? I don’t, either. Has everybody had enough of them? I have, too.

“As long as we play good baseball,” reliever Kendall Graveman said Tuesday, “I like our chances.”

But that’s what they’ve all said, over and over.

“To a man and to a woman,” Hahn said on June 7, “we feel good about what the next several months hold for us, potentially.”

The Sox promptly lost four of their next six to fall four games under .500.

After the Sox went into the All-Star break an embarrassing and hard-to-figure 19-25, La Russa boldly declared, “I guarantee you those numbers will be reversed at home from here to the end. We’re going to be a very good club at home.”

And how’s that working out? The Sox have still lost more than they’ve won on their home turf. This, a year after they were an American League-best 51-28.

After the Sox did next to nothing at the Aug. 2 trade deadline — an undeniable setback — Hahn buzzed the same old saw: “We still very much believe in this group that’s inside this clubhouse right now.”

Just a couple of days later, Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert and Yasmani Grandal were all in the lineup together. Hallelujah! The Sox were 53-51 — not terrible — the band was back together again, and all involved were excited.

“Plus-two is a nice place to be, because we’ve been trying to get there,” La Russa said. “Let’s get to 10 and then 15, you know what I mean? It’s like you’re on a trip, and you stop somewhere to get gas or lunch. You’re not at your destination.”

Instead, the Sox locked themselves out of the family truckster and dropped five of eight on the road against the Rangers and Royals. It was uncanny.

On Aug. 11, La Russa said this: “The switch is on. We’re in a position to get hot.”

And they kind of did, reeling off five wins in a row — only to blow their own mojo completely to hell over an ensuing two-week debacle during which they went 2-10.

What a bunch of pretenders.

As September arrived, outfielder A.J. Pollock said, “This is it. This is the chance that we can get on a little bit of a run here. … Maybe they fold and we can get hot, too.”

The Twins were a game in back of the Guardians — and three ahead of the Sox — on Sept. 1. Yep, they folded. The Guardians, though, have only gotten better and done whatever they’ve needed to do.

“We’re not backing down,” Sox closer Liam Hendriks promised on Sept. 7.

“We’re on a mission,” acting manager Miguel Cairo proclaimed on Sept. 10.

After the Sox won a makeup game in Cleveland on Sept. 15, cutting the division deficit to three, Cairo called it “a big one.”

“You see this is who we are,” he said.

Then the Sox went to Detroit and lost the opener against the Tigers, falling to four back, bcause that’s who they really were. That’s who they’ve been since leaving spring training in Arizona.

You want these “ifs”? You can have ’em.

There will be time enough for the reset button. It’s called the offseason.

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The start of the White Sox’ scheduled game against the Guardians Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field is being delayed by rain.

The estimated start time is 7:50 p.m.

Dylan Cease is slated to start against Aaron Civale as the Sox, trailing Cleveland by four games in the American League Central with 15 to play, look for a three-game sweep to get them back in the chase.

The Sox (76-71) have won eight of the last 11 games and 13 of 18. The Guardians (80-67) have won 12 of 15.

“Hopefully the atmosphere will be great,” Sox pitcher Kendall Graveman said. “Our fan base knows what is at stake, we do too.”

The Sox are enjoying their best stretch of the season but it may be too late.

“It’s obviously been what we were expecting, as a team, to be doing all season,” closer Liam Hendriks said.

“Hopefully we can go out there and play our best game for these last couple weeks and see what happens. Obviously, we’ve put ourselves in a position where we’re not exactly thrilled with.”

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MIAMI – When Cubs outfielder Nelson Vel?zquez called home on Tuesday, he learned the electricity at his mom’s house in Carolina, Puerto Rico had been restored. But now, the running water was shut off. He’s been checking in with his family every day since Hurricane Fiona made landfall on Sunday.

“Maybe one day they have electricity and another they have water, instead of everything going away,” he said in a conversation with the Sun-Times. “But everything at my house is good. They’re doing OK.”

Most of the island experienced a loss of running water and electricity. The storm ripped the roofs off houses and flooded residences and airports alike.

The storm also swept across the eastern side of the Dominican Republic. The heart of it missed San Cristobal, where Franmil Reyes’ family lives, and Santiago, Christopher Morel’s hometown, which is further inland.

Still, according to CNN, the hurricane left more than 1 million people in the Dominican Republic without running water.

Reyes opened his family group chat on WhatsApp earlier this week to see videos of destruction his family members had screen recorded from Instagram as Hurricane Fiona slammed the eastern side of the country.

Early on, the Emergency Operations Center issued a red alert for provinces including San Cristobal.

“It was nothing that scared me that much about my family because I knew they were going to be safe,” Reyes said, referencing the sturdy cement construction of their home, “but some people from my town that I grew up with and know, that worries me a little bit. Like I tell them all the time, they can always come to me, with what I can help with.

“I’m happy that nothing happened in my town to those people but sad because of what happened in Puerto Rico and some of those islands and the DR in the East too.”

The official MLB Puerto Rico Twitter account sent out a link to the league’s Red Cross donation collection page (redcross.org/MLB) on Tuesday. Former Cub Javy B?ez is among the MLB players who have lent their support to those affected by the hurricane. He offered free meals through a local restaurant in Puerto Rico, sending out the invitation via his instagram story.

Hurricane Fiona compounded the lingering aftereffects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. When Maria struck in September 2017, just weeks after Hurricane Irma, it killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the power grid.

Vel?zquez said the Cubs had him stay in Arizona in the immediate aftermath.

“It was hard a little bit,” Vel?zquez said. “You want to be with your family. You take care of them and try to take care of anything they need. But I talked with them, they told me they were OK, they were doing good. So, I respected the team’s decision for me to stay there, be safe, and when I had the chance to go there they flew me out.”

Some residents had to wait 11 months for their power to be restored. Five years later, when Hurricane Fiona hit, Puerto Rico hadn’t fully recovered. Thousands of homes were still covered by tarps.

“We as a people, we have to be ready for anything,” Vel?zquez said. “I wish that wouldn’t happen anymore, that we can be good and not lose the house or anything like that. But we have to live with that. It’s natural.”

Hurricane Fiona headed north from the Dominican Republic and hit the Turks and Caicos Islandson Tuesday as a Category 3 storm.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Tony La Russa’s health preventing him from returning to the White Sox

With the White Sox biggest series of the year against the 1st place Cleveland Guardians kicking off Tuesday night, the team will once again be without manager Tony La Russa for the entirety of the series.

After this series wraps up La Russa will have missed a total of 22 games due to medical issues with his heart that initially flared up before a game against the Kansas City royals in August.

How the White Sox have fared with out Tony La Russa

In La Russa’s abscence the team has been managed by bench coach Miguel Cairo. Cairo has managed the White Sox to a 13-6 record with the White Sox having the most home runs in the month of September and the second lowest ERA in the same time frame. It was Cairo who lit a fire under the Sox you know what by essentially saying to the team after a recent loss

If you don’t want to be here, then get the (expletive) out.

If Cairo can continue the White Sox success into October the Sox can really use La Russa’s post season managerial experience to their advantage if he’s good to go at that point in time.

What this means for Miguel Cairo

White Sox fans aren’t the only ones noticing the success the team has had under interim manager Miguel Cairo. If Cairo has to take over managerial duties for the rest of the season, which it’s looking that way, and manages this Sox team into the postseason after such an up and down year, teams will be lining up in the offseason to interview him to fill their potential managerial vacancy.

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The Chicago Fire soccer club got shut out Tuesday at the City Council’s zoning committee, where most alderpersons rejected a proposal to let the team to build an $80 million training center on the Near West Side.

But that’s unlikely to be the last word. Because several committee members missed the vote, the panel will reconvene Wednesday to reconsider the matter, said Ald. Tom Tunney (44th). Tunney, the committee’s chairman, said that if the item is approved, it would go to the full council for final action later Wednesday.

“We didn’t have the full committee, so there probably will be a motion to reconsider. That seems to be what the administration wants to do,” said Tunney, who supports the Fire’s plan. “We’ll rally the troops.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot backs the proposal covering nearly 26 acres the Chicago Housing Authority owns. The Fire would sign a long-term lease for the vacant site and build a three-story training and office center and five and a half soccer pitches, some to be used by youth programs the team sponsors. Part of the site would get an inflatable dome for cold-weather practices.

The club has said the project will benefit its operations while providing attractive fields for the community’s use. It will continue to play home games at Soldier Field.

Critics contend the CHA is letting the Fire use land that should be devoted to public housing. The property was part of the CHA’s ABLA Homes, which was replaced by the mixed-income Roosevelt Square development. But the CHA has not fulfilled promises to replace all the units lost to demolition.

The property is generally bounded by Roosevelt Road, Ashland Avenue, 14th Street and Loomis Street.

At Tuesday’s session of the council’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards, seven alderpersons opposed the Fire’s plan while five backed it. Another seven committee members were absent when the matter got a roll-call vote.

Opponents of the plan said the CHA hasn’t met its obligation to build replacement housing for former ABLA residents. In a letter to alderpersons, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights said the CHA and a private developer, Related Midwest, have delivered just 245 of 775 promised units to date. It said the “delays in delivering replacement units cannot serve as a basis to jettison a vital supply of coveted, available, public housing land in a gentrifying community.”

A CHA executive at the committee meeting agreed the agency is behind in its commitment but that money from the Fire deal will help the agency build and renovate more housing around Roosevelt Square. Ann McKenzie, chief development officer for the CHA, said the Fire’s facility will make the area more attractive for residential growth.

“In the end, there are lots of units to bring back and we embrace this as building community,” she said.

The project is within the 28th Ward of Ald. Jason Ervin, who spoke in favor of the plan. He said the Fire “will be a good neighbor” and that its facility “will help catalyze development.”

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), who opposed the plan, noted that it has gotten no endorsement from citizens groups that advise the CHA.

There was no immediate comment from the mayor’s office. Fire spokesman Jhamie Chin declined to comment.

McKenzie said the Fire’s lease covers 40 years, with two 10-year renewal options. She said that besides paying $8 million upfront, the Fire will pay an annual rent starting at almost $800,000, with increases in future years. McKenzie said the Fire’s upfront payment will cover the estimated $4 million cost for environmental work needed at the property.

She told alderpersons that the U.S. Department of Housing and Development has yet to approve the deal with the Fire. HUD’s approval is required because the land was involved with public housing.

The team wants to relocate its practices from Bridgeview, saying it wants to operate in the city, closer to its fan base. An earlier plan to put the practice fields and training center in Hanson Park at Fullerton and Central avenues was scrapped when the team could not reach terms on a lease with the site’s owner, the Chicago Public Schools.

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Tony La Russa was still not managing the White Sox when the team returned home from a road trip to play a big series against the Guardians at Guaranteed Rate Field. No surprise there. But La Russa wasn’t even in the building Tuesday and isn’t expected during the entire series.

With 15 games left, it’s the latest indication the Sox might finish out the season with bench coach Miguel Cairo acting as manager. When the Sox were last home for a two-game series against the Rockies last Tuesday and Wednesday, La Russa was in the clubhouse and his office and watched the games from a suite.

La Russa still has not received medical clearance to manage, according to the team. Cairo said he still talks to him every day, though.

“Right now, he doesn’t want to be in this series and we don’t expect to see him in this series,” Cairo said. “We’ll just see what’s going to happen.”

The Sox were 13-6 since Cairo took over, enjoying their best stretch in disappointing. Even if La Russa were cleared, there is a sense inside the team the best thing for La Russa’s health and the good of the team considering their recent performance is to keep the status quo.

That said, La Russa, a 77-year-old Hall of Famer, has the respect of the clubhouse.

“His fingerprints are all over this clubhouse, this organization,” closer Liam Hendriks said.

“He set the floor plan, hopefully we can get him back in here at some point and everyone continues this momentum, but Miggy’s taking it and tweaking it a little bit to a couple of the guys who needed it a little tweaked. And that’s something that’s been fantastic.

“You see a little more energy out there from certain guys. Certain guys are feeling a little more comfortable, as well. It is what it is.”

Anderson update

Shortstop Tim Anderson said he wasn’t ready to play, not for the Sox and not on a rehab assignment. He’s waiting for his surgically repaired middle finger on his left hand to be ready.

Anderson is taking batting practice at full go and fielding ground balls and looks good but he’s “really just being patient. Being smart. I want to be smart. You have to think about the future as well and not just tomorrow even though the moment is important but my career is important as well.”

Anderson hasn’t played in six and a half weeks, so jumping into game action without a couple of games at Charlotte would be a “challenge,” Cairo said. But as Anderson said, “time is winding down. I definitely wouldn’t want to leave. We’ll see how I feel and how comfortable I am.”

Elvis Andrus, meanwhile, who has been superb in Anderson’s place, will take ground balls at second base and could shift there when Anderson gets back.

Cueto on mend

Johnny Cueto, who was ill and missed his start in Detroit over the weekend, is slated to start Thursday against the Indians on nine days rest.

“I feel good, much better today,” said Cueto, who was dealing with sinus-related issues. “I felt weak and my vision wasn’t right. Body aches, too.”

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