# White Sox tie American League loss record as Padres push toward playoffs

*By IO Digest Desk*

The Chicago White Sox matched the American League record for losses in a season on event date 2024-09-21, falling 6-2 to the San Diego Padres for their 119th defeat. AP’s supplied extract says the loss tied the AL mark set by the 2003 Detroit Tigers, pushing Chicago deeper into a season that had already become defined by historic failure [Source 490].

The immediate game turned on power hitting from San Diego. Xander Bogaerts and Elias Díaz each hit a two-run homer, giving the Padres enough offense to control the result while moving closer to a playoff spot. That split-screen nature of the night is central to the story: for San Diego, the game was part of a late-season push; for Chicago, it was another step toward a record few teams want even mentioned beside their name [Source 490].

Tying the American League mark did not yet make the White Sox the sole holders of the record, but it formally placed them alongside one of the most notorious losing seasons in recent AL history. Records of this kind carry a different weight from ordinary standings numbers. They remove the possibility that a bad year can be dismissed as a temporary slump and instead locate the team in a much longer historical comparison [Source 490].

The AP extract shows that the White Sox were still active participants in the game rather than simply overwhelmed, but the result remained the same. That is often how extreme losing seasons harden into records: not always through spectacular blowouts, but through steady, repeated defeats in games that still offer brief moments of resistance. The arithmetic is relentless even when the scoreboard on a given night looks ordinary [Source 490].

San Diego’s side of the equation matters because late September games are rarely isolated. The Padres were using wins like this to edge nearer the postseason, and Chicago’s collapse became part of another team’s momentum. That contrast only sharpened the sense of drift around the White Sox, whose games had become less about daily progress and more about whether another historical threshold would fall before the season ended [Source 490].

On the supplied evidence, the confirmed facts are sufficient: Chicago lost to San Diego, reached 119 defeats and tied the American League record established by the 2003 Tigers. The game therefore marked a clear historical waypoint even before the season concluded. By this point, the White Sox were no longer simply a last-place club. They were a team operating inside the record books, with every additional loss carrying the chance to move from tying one grim benchmark to owning it outright [Source 490].