This story was updated to add new information.
The Chicago White Sox have officially become Major League Baseball’s kings of futility.
With their 121st defeat of the season, the White Sox now stand alone as the losingest team in modern baseball history.
The record-breaker came Friday night in a 4-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
White Sox ace Garrett Crochet kept the Tigers in check through four innings, but the dam finally broke in the fifth inning after he was lifted. Detroit got to reliever Jared Shuster and plated two to break a scoreless tie, and it was enough (though the Tigers added two more runs in the seventh for good measure). Zach DeLoach’s solo home run in the sixth was the only run the White Sox could muster.
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The loss breaks a tie with the 1962 New York Mets, who finished their inaugural season with a record of 40-120, prompting manager Casey Stengel to lament, ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’
The same question could also be posed of the 2024 White Sox.
Chicago (39-121) has endured losing streaks of 21, 14 and 12 games this season, with the longest of the streaks leading to the firing of manager Pedro Grifol in early August.
Avoiding baseball infamy wasn’t part of the White Sox’s plan either as they dealt away pitchers Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech, and outfielders Eloy Jimenez and Tommy Pham just before the July 30 trade deadline — further weakening the team on the field.
Entering Friday’s game, the White Sox ranked last in the majors in scoring (3.1 runs per game), batting average (.221), on-base percentage (.279) and slugging (.340). Their pitchers also have the highest team ERA in the American League (4.71), trailing only the Miami Marlins (4.77) and Colorado Rockies (5.40) for the worst in the majors.
They fought off standing alone in infamy earlier this week, by sweeping the Los Angeles Angels, but couldn’t avoid loss 121 on Friday night.
‘Winning three in a row, maybe we could do something special and ride it out and … think it’s maybe not going to happen,’ the White Sox’s Gavin Sheets said after the game, per the Chicago Tribune’s Daryl Van Schouwen. ‘And all of a sudden on the last out you’re on the wrong side of history. It hurt a little more than I expected it to.’
While the White Sox were left licking their wounds Friday night, the Tigers celebrated a better kind of history: they secured their first playoff berth in 10 years. Bad news for the White Sox? They still have two more games this weekend to add to their record-setting loss total.
The one team the White Sox will not surpass, however, is the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who posted a record of 20-134, for a ‘winning’ percentage of .130.