SAN DIEGO — In the hours before losing their 120th game of the season, there was nothing unusual in the Chicago White Sox locker room.

Some gathered to attend Sunday chapel together. Others watched early NFL games. Pitcher Chris Flexen played a golf video game for nearly an hour on an arcade console in the middle of the room.

After the loss, everything felt normal. Solemn silence, yes. But that’s how it is in every major league locker room after a loss. Bags were packed. The players slipped into their gray tracksuits and prepared for the long flight home.

It was inevitable that they would tie the 1962 New York Mets for the most losses in modern baseball history, which they did on Sunday with a 4-2 loss to the San Diego Padres. And so, at least for this group of players, reaching the unfortunate mark of 120 losses seemed to carry little additional weight.

“It’s the same as any other loss,” said Andrew Benintendi. “They’re all crap, no matter how many there are. It doesn’t matter to us.”

The 1962 Mets went 40-120 in their debut season. This team was thrown together in an expansion draft. This team had all kinds of reasons to be bad.

In contrast, the White Sox are founding members of the American League. They have won their division four times in the last 25 years. There should be no viable path to such a record. And yet they are poised to surpass the Mets’ modern losing standard.

With six games left, it’s just a matter of when, not if, they own the losing record. For a team that was swept off the pitch for the 24th time on Sunday, it seems likely that at least one more defeat is on the way.

“I think everyone outside of this locker room is going to be more obsessed with this than we are,” manager Grady Sizemore said after the game. “We’re just going to put this behind us and get ready for the next series at home.”

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In the next series, they will face the Los Angeles Angels in their home stadium, who are 30 games under their record but still 27 games ahead of the White Sox in the standings.

The game will likely draw more spectators than it deserves, if only out of the morbid curiosity of witnessing a truly historic baseball event in person.

“We all know the situation,” Sizemore said. “We all know where we stand. But we still have work to do.”

Sizemore has repeatedly talked about focusing on the development of the team’s younger players, which is why a veteran like Yoan Moncada isn’t playing despite coming off the injured list earlier this week. When asked about the record, Sizemore comes back to that point again.

“The focus is not on wins and losses,” he said.

In any other context, a professional manager or head coach saying something like that out loud would raise eyebrows. What else is he supposed to say about this team? It’s easier than accepting Chicago’s horrific reality.

Is this group of young players really the group that will bring about a turnaround? Skepticism would be appropriate. After all, many of the young regular players, just like the veterans, are not performing well either.

“I guess when you lose 120, it’s kind of easier to brush it off,” Benintendi said. “It sucks to go through that – nobody wants to do that. But that’s where we are.”

Benintendi said his teammates “joke all the time” that it seems like they’re in every game, rarely suffering a crushing loss, but still can’t win. Sunday was no different. The White Sox put up a valiant effort.

Sean Burke threw six excellent innings, allowing just one run on two hits and a walk in his third major league appearance. Korey Lee hit a home run. Miguel Vargas did the same. And the White Sox went into the eighth inning with a one-run lead.

“To go out there and take a trip like that against them,” Burke said, “feels good.”

But as so often this season, the bright spots are the only small consolation that leads the team through a miserable season.

When the game ended, it wasn’t Burke’s first six innings that stood out. Instead, it was Vargas, the prized returner in their now infamous three-way deal at the deadline, lying on his backside in foul territory, legs in the air and hands above his head as he collected himself after dropping what should have been a simple pop out.

Such almost caricatural moments have characterized the White Sox’s season. The same goes for the squandered leads – like when a one-run lead was turned into a two-run deficit after four batters in the eighth inning on Sunday.

“I think if you ask all 50 people in this organization, yeah, we’re not going to be happy about it,” said Lee, the White Sox catcher. “If you’re happy about it, I don’t know what you’re doing here. It’s obviously tough, but you have to focus on one day at a time.”

It was a historic day for the White Sox. And unfortunately, the next day could bring even more.

(Photo of White Sox players looking out of their dugout on Sunday: Denis Poroy / Getty Images)