The Chicago White Sox broke the 62-year-old Major League Baseball single-season record for most losses in a season with 121 losses against the Detroit Tigers.
The White Sox lost the game 4-1. This came after a three-game winning streak against the Los Angeles Angels and a 120-game losing streak.
On Thursday, the Sox shut out the Angels 7-0.
The 121 losses surpassed the total recorded by the 1962 expansion New York Mets. The White Sox have surpassed the 2003 Detroit Tigers, a team that lost 119 games, setting the American League record. MLB only counts records set in the modern era, which began in 1900, so the 1899 Cleveland Spiders’ all-time record of 134 losses is not included.
The remarkable feat of futility was the culmination of a long and frustrating season in which the White Sox recorded multiple double-header losses, including 14-game skid from May 22 to June 6, and then an American League-record 21-game losing streak between July 10 and August 5. All that is lost leads to fired from manager Pedro Grifol in only his second season at the helm. In less than two seasons, Grifol led the team in more losses than wins.
Grady Sizemore took over as interim manager for the rest of the season.
The White Sox then recorded another 12-game losing streak which lasts from August 23 to September 3.
Jeff Chiu / AP
It’s a season unlike any fans of the franchise, which will mark the 20th anniversary of its last World Series victory next year. The team’s winning percentage through Sunday .231 is still significantly behind the next-worst season in franchise history, the 1932 White Sox who are 49-102-1 and posted a winning percentage of .325.
Until this season, the White Sox team with the most single-season losses in franchise history was the 1970 team, which went 56-106. This year’s team is just the sixth in franchise history to record 100 or more losses in a season, according to Baseball Reference, which has team statistics going back to 1901, the year the American League was officially organized.
“I feel your pain”
The White Sox’s record has been so bad that even the team’s official X (formerly Twitter) account has been having fun with the pile of losses lately.
On September 18, after losing to the Angels, send the team to read the final score“FINAL: the other team scored more than us.”
last saturday, team is sent“FINAL: can be found in the MLB app,” after the loss of the Padres.
Then on Sunday, the team’s account was sent a the widely used GIF version from the car trying to drive fast to the exit ramp, representing the team’s social media administrator, refusing to post the final score and opting for “literally anything.”
The Sox kept up on social media after the loss on Saturday night.
Articles read:
Things I like more than reading comments:
- Get a root canal
- Tax file
- Eat 5,000 salty crackers without water
- The cinnamon challenge
- Put ketchup on hot dogs
- Bear crawl across the Sahara Desert
- Walk barefoot on the L train
The post also shows a separate window on a computer desktop screen showing a tired Southpaw White Sox mascot, with the text, “laptop slams closed until tomorrow.”
The situation even struck a chord with famous horror writer and Boston Red Sox fan Stephen King consider on social media.
“Chicago White Sox fans, I feel your pain,” King posted on X. “Like any other Sox fan, I tried to switch my allegiance to Cleveland during a terrible season (Butch Hobson, I’m talking about you) I can’t do it it’s going to be more good.
Mark J. Terrill / AP
Despite the jokes on social media, the leadership of the White Sox has faced questions about what went wrong and how the team endured a difficult season.
General Manager Chris Getz summed up the organization’s feelings last month when he spoke to members of the news media following Grifol’s firing.
“There’s an overall lack of production,” Getz said. “I mean you look at how many games we’ve had early leads and not been able to finish or how many games we haven’t been able to come back to win. Obviously, something is broken. I know the flaws in this roster, but with that said, we expect to win more. games.
After the loss of the San Diego Padres last Friday, the 120th team in the season to tie the major league record, Sizemore, in true manager fashion, tried to downplay the importance of the historical mark for the club.
“No loss is good,” Sizemore said. “Like I said, it’s not something we focus on. I think everyone outside the clubhouse will be more interested in us.”
