White Sox Lose 121 Games in a Season, Making History

Friday night in Detroit, as people bought hats and ate hot dogs and sang along to rock anthems, the Chicago White Sox pulled off a staggering feat.They lost their 121st game of the season, vaulting themselves into modern baseball history by breaking the record for most losses, one previously held by the 1962 Mets.And yet, because the White Sox lost that record-setting game away from home, in front of 44,435 delirious Tigers fans celebrating an unlikely run to the playoffs, hardly anyone present seemed to notice.That might have been the most merciful thing.

The record is a fitting end to a cursed year.How bad were the 2024 White Sox? Up in the press box, reporters traded terrible stats like kids trading scary stories around a campfire.Chicago started the year 3-22, and in a recent stretch of home games they went 1-28.

They slumped through separate losing streaks of 21 games, 14 games, and 12 games.Over the course of the season, the White Sox have been outscored by more than 300 runs.After a while, the numbers feel less like statistics than like some sort of numerical insult comedy.After Friday, all of those terrible numbers can be reduced to one big number, 121.

(And it could go up with two games left in the season.)So what went wrong? Basically, everything.Injuries, trades, slumps.

Close losses.Flukey bounces.

A game-winning home run robbed by a flying left fielder.Sitting at his locker one day, late in this miserable season, the pitcher Chris Flexen searched for a word to describe it.

The best he could come up with, he said, was “weird.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....