Chicago White Sox lose 120th game of the season, tying modern MLB record

The 2024 Chicago White Sox have made history, but it’s not the good kind.

They lost their 120th game of the season on Sunday, tying the 1962 New York Mets for the most losses in a single season since the modern era of baseball began in 1900. With six games left in the regular season, it’s more than likely that the Sox will set a new record in the coming days.

For the White Sox, it was a loss much like the 119 others they’ve experienced this year, though it was closer than some — they fell to the San Diego Padres 4-2.

The White Sox will have a chance to break the record on Tuesday at home against the Los Angeles Angels.

But first let’s talk about the team the White Sox just tied. The 1962 Mets were a brand-new team, having come into existence as an expansion franchise after the Brooklyn Dodgers pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles and the New York Giants left for San Francisco. Expansion teams draft players from other teams’ rosters, so they’re not expected to be good right away. The Mets were especially bad, but badness at some level was expected.

The White Sox have existed in Chicago since 1900. Jerry Reinsdorf has owned the franchise since 1981. They lost 101 games in 2023, then fired their general manager and promoted farm director Chris Getz to the position. With the farm director replacing the GM, there was some hope that the on-field product might improve a bit or at least not get worse. Badness was expected, but certainly not at this historic level.

In a season filled with indignities, the past two months have been especially rough on the South Side. Here’s an overview of what has happened to the White Sox since Aug. 1.

Monumental losing streak. They lost 21 straight games, one loss shy of the all-time American League record.

Manager fired. The day after they snapped their losing streak, Getz and Reinsdorf fired embattled manager Pedro Grifol, who racked up a shocking 89-190 record in less than two seasons at the helm. The White Sox were 28-89 when he was fired.

Incredibly early elimination. The White Sox were eliminated from playoff contention on Aug. 17, the earliest any team has been eliminated since the advent of divisional play in 1969.

Lost 100 games for third time in six years. The White Sox reached 100 losses on Aug. 25, the sixth time in franchise history that the team has lost that many regular-season games.

Tied franchise loss record on Sept 1. The record for losses in a White Sox season was 106, set in 1970. The 2024 team tied that record with a full month left in the regular season.

Received sympathy from surviving members of 1962 Mets. Three members of that infamous 1962 Mets team publicly expressed sympathy for the 2024 White Sox, including pitchers Craig Anderson (who went 3-17 in 1962) and Jay Hook (who went 8-19). Late first baseman Ed Kranepool also felt bad but had a slightly different take: “Better them than me.”

Jerry Reinsdorf “thinks he knows everything,” accused of leading White Sox to ruin. The Athletic spoke to more than 40 current and former White Sox employees, and the prevailing opinion was that Reinsdorf, with his overall refusal to modernize and accept other opinions, is to blame for the 2024 White Sox’s historically awful season.

With just one more loss between them and history, the 2024 White Sox are about to tread on uncharted territory. Once they set the MLB loss record, they’re going where no modern baseball team has ever gone before. It’s lonely out there on the frontier of history.