The Chicago White Sox broke the Major League Baseball (MLB) modern-era record for the most losses in one season yesterday, falling 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers for their 121st defeat this year.
The Tigers, who clinched their first playoff berth in a decade with the victory, grabbed the upper hand with two runs in the fifth inning.
Chicago’s Zach DeLoach cut the deficit with a homer in the sixth, but Detroit added a pair of runs in the seventh and the White Sox were on the way to a dubious place in MLB history.
Photo AP
The White Sox had tied the 1962 New York Mets with their 120th loss of the season on Sunday last week. Then they stunningly won three straight games against the Los Angeles Angels, twice rallying to avoid being saddled with the outright record for a few more days.
They have two more games against the Tigers in Detroit before they can draw the curtain on the worst season in MLB’s modern era.
It is no consolation that the 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 20-134.
“It’s not the year we wanted,” said Grady Sizemore, who took over as interim manager when the White Sox fired Pedro Grifol last month.
“It’s not the numbers that we want. But that doesn’t mean it’s a total loss. We can build from this. We can learn from this and get better,” he said, vowing “We’ll be stronger because of it.
White Sox starting pitcher Garrett Crochet threw four scoreless innings, striking out six and issuing one walk.
“No real emotions,” Crochet said. “Obviously, it sucks. We put ourselves in this position early on. We are where we are because of the way we played, which sucks. But that’s just all it is.”
The Tigers scored two runs in the fifth off Chicago reliever Jared Schuster, who walked Jake Rogers, gave up a single to Parker Meadows then walked Andy Ibanez to load the bases.
Rogers scored on a wild pitch and Meadows scored on a sacrifice fly from Matt Vierling and the White Sox were on the ropes.
The White Sox’s historically bad season includes plenty of low points. They set a franchise record with a 14-game losing streak that ended on June 7, then broke the mark with a 21-game skid that tied the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for the longest in American League history.
Ironically, fans had flocked to Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field to see the White Sox claim the record earlier this week, only for them to notch two comeback wins over the Angels before closing their three-game set with a rout on Thursday.
At Comerica Park in Detroit, the long anticipated moment of ignominy was swamped by jubilant celebrations of Tigers players and fans as the club completed their late-season turnaround by booking a first trip to the post-season since 2014.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
RSS