How bad was the White Sox offense in the first half?

After 81 games, the White Sox were last in the AL in runs scored per game with 3.95. The next lowest is the Royals at 4.44. So the Sox are about half a run below the next worst team. The league average is 4.87, so the Sox are about .9 runs below average and they scored only 81% of the runs per game that the average team did (take the Sox out and the other teams are scoring 4.93 runs per game, almost a run more). That would tie for 10th worst from 1993-2006. The 2003 Dodgers were the worst, scoring on 73% of the league average (from the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia). Of course, the Dodgers have an excuse: they play in a bad hitters park. The White Sox can't make that claim.

The Sox tream OPS is .722 at home and only .678 on the road (as of now). After 81 games, the Sox were last in batting average (.237, 13th was .257), last in OBP (.312, 13th was .323), last in SLG (.370, 13th was .387), and last in OPS (.682, 13th was .710). Their team OPS was 90.4% of the league average. That would be tied for 10th also from 1993-2006.

Getting back to runs per game in the AL this year, the standard deviation of runs per game in the AL for the other 13 teams is .42. So the Sox are a full standard deviation below the next worst team.

They have scored 43 runs in their last 7 games since the the half way mark, so maybe things will pick up (although they were shut out twice). Their team OPS is up to .699, too. Their OPS has been about .896 in those 7 games.