The Detroit Tigers are going to the playoffs, while the Chicago White Sox are going to the history books.
With Friday’s 4-1 loss in Detroit, Chicago now has 121 losses on the season, breaking the modern losing record set by the expansion 1962 New York Mets.
Meanwhile, the Tigers have miraculously clinched a wild card spot after going 55-63 on August 10. Detroit has been on a roll, winning six straight and 10 of 11 to advance to the playoffs and eliminate the defending AL Central champion. Minnesota twins of the race.
But the news of the night belonged to the White Sox, a 39-121 team led by interim manager Grady Sizemore that has outsold just three MLB teams in 2024.
They replace perhaps baseball’s most famous losers with the 1962 Mets. Casey Stengel’s final managerial stint ended with a 40-120-1 record, which included the first and only tie in MLB history. Since then, the ‘Amazin’ Mets’, as Stengel sarcastically called his team, have been immortalized for what sportswriters described as the club’s ‘spectacular ineptitude.’
Garrett Crochet #45 of the Chicago White Sox throws a pitch against the Detroit Tigers
The 1962 expansion Mets appear behind manager Casey Stengel and general manager George Weiss.
The closest any team came to New York’s record was the 2003 Tigers, who won their last two games to finish with 119 losses. That remained 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 clinched a postseason berth in front of 44,435 raucous fans.
Starter Garrett Crochet gave them a chance and finished his season with four scoreless innings, but the White Sox couldn’t score early and Jared Shuster gave up two runs in the fifth.
Zach DeLoach hit his first home run in the sixth, but Dominic Fletcher’s error in center field led to two more Tiger runs in the seventh.
The White Sox, who are last in the American League in runs scored and allowed, have threatened the 120-loss barrier since they began the season with 25 losses in their first 28 games.
Chicago was 15-48 after losing 14-2 to the Red Sox on June 6 (the Mets were 17-46 after 63 games), but won the next two games to start an 11-16 run. . That left them with a 26-64 record, two games better than New York’s record after 90 games.
At the time, it looked like they could avoid matching the Tigers and Mets, but they lost 23 of their next 24 games, including a 20-game losing streak.
Chicago White Sox pitcher Fraser Ellard throws warm-up pitches during the seventh inning.
Mets manager Casey Stengel stands on the field in the Polo Grounds dugout in 1962.
The 1962 Mets pitchers stay warm at the Polo Grounds, where the bullpen was in fair territory
Tigers players celebrate their place in the playoffs after beating the worst team in MLB history
When they beat the A’s 5-1 on August 6, they were on pace for 124 losses.
Another 10-game losing streak, which stretched from August to September, left them at 31-109 (.221). At the time, the question seemed to be whether they could prevent total losses from approaching 125.
That didn’t seem likely when they fell to 33-115 after a 2-0 home loss to the A’s on September 13. To avoid breaking the record, they needed seven wins in their last 12 games.
They grew closer than anyone could have expected. They won the last two games against Oakland and the first game of a road series against the Angels.
A five-game losing streak followed and they tied the record against the Padres, but they returned home to outlast the Angels 14-5 in a three-game sweep. They finished 23-58 at home to avoid another record: the 59 home losses of the 1939 St. Louis Browns and the 2019 Tigers.
