DETROIT – The Chicago White Sox lost their record 121st major league game on Friday night, falling 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers.

The White Sox broke the post-1900 record of 120 in their first season, set by the New York Mets in 1962. The overall record was set by the Cleveland Spiders in 1899 with a record of 20-134.

The closest thing to the New York record was the 2003 Tigers, who won their last two games and finished with 119 losses. That remained the American League record until the White Sox reached 120 on Sunday in San Diego.

After the White Sox bypassed the record with a home win against the Los Angeles Angels, they lost to a Tigers team that clinched a postseason berth in front of 44,435 raucous fans.

White Sox starter Garrett Crochet gave them a chance, finishing his season with four shutout innings, but Chicago couldn’t score early and Jared Shuster gave up two runs in the fifth.

Chicago’s Zach DeLoach hit his first home run in the sixth, but Dominic Fletcher’s error in center field led to two more Tigers runs in the seventh.

The White Sox, who rank last in the AL in runs scored and runs allowed, have threatened the 120-loss mark since the start of the season with 25 losses in their first 28 games.

Chicago was 15-48 after losing 14-2 to the Boston Red Sox on June 6 – the Mets were 17-46 after 63 games – but won the next two games and began an 11-16 run. That made them 26-64, two games better than New York’s 90-game record.

At that point, it looked like they might avoid keeping up with the Tigers and Mets, but they lost 23 of their next 24 games, including a 20-game losing streak.

When they beat the Oakland Athletics 5-1 on August 6th, they already had 124 losses.

Another 10-game losing streak that spanned August through September resulted in a score of 31-109 (.221). At this point the question seemed to be whether they would manage to reduce the total losses to 125.

That didn’t seem likely when they fell to 33-115 after a 2-0 home loss to the Athletics on Sept. 13. In order not to break the record, they needed seven wins in the last twelve games.

They came closer than anyone 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 San Diego Padres, but returned home and outscored the Angels 14-5 in three games. They finished 23-58 at home to avoid another record – the 59 home losses of the 1939 St. Louis Browns and the 2019 Tigers.