White Sox break MLB record for earliest elimination from playoff contention in wild-card or divisional era

There we were, a sunny Saturday afternoon in Chicago, and it was just a regular day at the ballpark. The White Sox were on the field, but if you looked around, it didn’t feel like it. The fans, the few that still show up, know the drill by now. No nail-biting finishes, no heroics, just the slow, steady march toward another loss. But this one was special, in a way only a seasoned, long-suffering fan could understand: the Sox managed to get eliminated from playoff contention faster than any team in recent baseball memory.

You’d think being out of the running before the leaves start to change would be tough, but this year’s White Sox made it look easy. They didn’t just break the record for earliest elimination; they did it with the kind of flair only the hopeless can muster. Just 124 games into the season, after yet another lifeless 6-1 loss to the Houston Astros, the numbers told the tale. The Sox are now mathematically toast, 38 and a half games out with 38 games left to play. That’s right: one game worse than the 2018 Orioles, who probably had a party on Saturday just for not holding this record anymore.

At 30-94, this team is on pace to lose 123 games. Think about that for a second. Only one team in the history of modern baseball has ever lost more: the 1962 Mets, who set the gold standard for futility with 120 losses in their debut season. The Sox aren’t some scrappy expansion team, though; they’re supposed to be a big-league ballclub. Yet here they are, flirting with one of the ugliest marks in the sport’s long history.

But the agony doesn’t stop there. These White Sox are gunning for a different kind of infamy, too—the worst winning percentage since World War I. At a lowly 24.2%, they’re only a hair better than the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, a team so bad it made people rethink what was possible in professional sports. If this keeps up, and let’s be honest, it probably will, the Sox might just edge them out for that not-so-coveted title.

It’s been a summer of historic losing streaks, too. This year, the Sox became just the seventh team in MLB history to drop 20 games in a row. That’s the kind of streak that makes fans groan and writers reach for the thesaurus, looking for new ways to say “disaster.” In fact, they’ve managed to notch two of the 40 longest losing streaks in modern baseball in the same season. That’s a feat nobody’s lining up to congratulate them on.

To add another cruel twist, next year’s draft won’t even offer the faint glimmer of hope it usually does. Thanks to some rule about non-revenue sharing teams not being able to pick high in the draft two years in a row, the Sox are stuck picking no higher than 10th. So, while the season’s been a disaster, they won’t even get a shot at the top prospects next year. It’s like the baseball gods decided they hadn’t suffered enough.

So here we are, with August not even halfway over, and the White Sox already a footnote in the season. The faithful will keep showing up, out of habit or maybe a twisted sense of loyalty, but even they know what’s coming. Another loss, another chance to rewrite the record books in the worst way possible. It’s the kind of season that makes you wonder why we love this game so much—until you remember, sometimes the bad years make the good ones that much sweeter. At least, that’s what they keep telling themselves on the South Side.