What's next for Sox season sinking fast?

Now that the White Sox' record is 11-20, maybe it's OK to seriously consider whether a baseball team can lose an entire season in little more than a month.

The bottom keeps getting lower for the Sox. Like, the team that is supposed to be “All in” this year, as the marketing campaign proclaims, made all outs Tuesday night.

As if being 9½ games out of first place after 30 games wasn't bad enough for the Sox, they lost 1-0 to Minnesota in Game 31 and Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano no-hit them.

“I was asking people what to say,” Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said afterward. “This was the first (no-hitter against the Sox) in my career (as a manager).”

It isn't the kind of first that anybody likes to be on the losing end of, but it has been that kind of early season for the Sox.

The team that already was playing badly enough couldn't get a hit against a pitcher that came in with a 9.13 earned-run average.

So what's next? The Sox go a second straight game without a hit Wednesday? How about for an encore the Twins throw a perfect game at them?

Liriano is capable of being a really good pitcher in the major leagues, but he has had arm trouble during his career and never even had a complete game in the major leagues.

No wonder that right after the game Liriano told Fox Sports in Minnesota of the no-hitter, “I wasn't even thinking about it at all.”

Well, that's where the Sox are now. Maybe most teams couldn't be considered a failure by May 4, but the Sox are plunging pretty close to that abyss.

The Sox still can win the American League Central because other alleged contenders like the Twins and the Tigers also are struggling.

But then there are the Indians, who weren't supposed to be good but whose fast start makes them appear to be more than pretenders.

For the Sox, the danger of starting slowly is it disrupts their business model for the season and most seasons.

As long ago as the mid-1980s, Sox co-owner Eddie Einhorn would mention the dynamics of a season. He meant that a franchise like this, which normally doesn't sell an overwhelming number of tickets over the winter, needs to start fast to sell a lot more in the spring.

This year, club chairman Jerry Reinsdorf provided general manager Kenny Williams with the cash for a $128 million payroll. The hope was that a good team would increase attendance and, by extension, revenues.

For that to happen, the Sox had to play well in April, May and June to inspire fans to come out to the ballpark in July, August and September.

By that measure the Sox already have lost the season. Unless they quickly and improbably go on a long winning streak, it will take them weeks and maybe months to get back to .500.

Fans already are abandoning the Sox and might not notice them again until it's too late, causing a fatal cash-flow problem.

Even if the Sox do happen to climb back into contention at some point, they likely wouldn't feel financially flush enough at the trade deadline to spend on a hitter or pitcher that would help them win a division title.

You see, “All in” doesn't exactly mean “All in” as in going all the way down to the organization's bottom dollar.

In that respect if the Sox' season isn't lost already, it's dangerously close to it.