The Chicago White Sox lost their major league-record 121st game since 1900 on Friday night, falling 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers.
This loss broke the previous record of 120 set by the New York Mets in 1962 during their first season. The Cleveland Spiders hold the all-time record with a 20-134 record in 1899.
“Honestly, there’s nothing for me right now,” manager Grady Sizemore said. “I think the frustration came long before this number. This was one of those things you can’t be happy about, but I don’t know if I would feel any different if we were at 115 or 110.”
The closest any team had come to the Mets’ record was the 2003 Tigers, who won their last two games to finish with 119 losses. That was the American League record until the White Sox reached 120 on Sunday in San Diego.
After avoiding the record by sweeping the Los Angeles Angels at home, the White Sox lost to a Tigers team that secured a playoff spot in front of 44,435 excited fans.
The White Sox were in the postseason as recently as 2021.
“It’s tough watching them celebrate, because that was us just a couple years ago,” starting pitcher Garrett Crochet said.
Crochet gave the team a chance, completing four shutout innings, but the White Sox couldn’t score early, and Jared Shuster gave up two runs in the fifth inning.
Zach DeLoach hit his first home run in the sixth, but an error by Dominic Fletcher in center field allowed two more runs for the Tigers in the seventh. Chicago went down quietly against the strong Tigers bullpen.
“No one in our clubhouse is feeling sorry for themselves,” Sizemore said. “There’s a lot left in the tank, but (the Tigers) have shown a lot in these last couple months. They are just getting better.”
The White Sox, who rank last in the American League for both runs scored and runs allowed, have been near the 120-loss mark since starting the season with 25 losses in their first 28 games.
“We put ourselves in this position early on,” Crochet said. “We had a bad April and we never dug ourselves out of that hole.”
Chicago was 15-48 after losing 14-2 to the Red Sox on June 6. The Mets were 17-46 after their first 63 games, but the White Sox won the next two games, starting an 11-16 run. This left them at 26-64, two games ahead of New York’s record after 90 games.
At that point, it seemed like they might avoid matching the Tigers and Mets, but they lost 23 of their next 24 games, including a 20-game losing streak.
By the time they beat the Athletics 5-1 on August 6, they were on track for 124 losses.
Another 10-game losing streak from August into September brought their record to 31-109 (.221). At that time, the main concern was whether they could keep their losses from reaching 125.
This seemed unlikely when they dropped to 33-115 after a 2-0 home loss to the Athletics on September 13. To avoid breaking the record, they needed to win seven of their last 12 games.
They came closer than anyone expected. They won the last two games against Oakland and the first game of a road series against the Angels.
However, a five-game losing streak followed, and they matched the record against the Padres. But they returned home and outscored the Angels 14-5 in a three-game sweep. They finished with a 23-58 record at home, avoiding another record for most home losses, which is held by the 1939 St. Louis Browns and the 2019 Tigers.
“We’re trying to end on a positive anyway we can,” Sizemore said.
Three years after the 2006 Tigers lost 119 games, they reached the World Series thanks to Magglio Ordonez’s walk-off homer in the ALCS against the Athletics.
“Anything can happen in this game, and that’s a good example,” Sizemore said. “There’s a lot of work for us to do, and right now, we’re focused on getting ourselves better.”
