CHICAGO — Andy Ibañez homered and had three RBIs, and the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox 9-4 on Sunday, handing the team its 100th loss.
Andrew Vaughn of the White Sox (31-100) had a double, a home run and two RBIs, but the White Sox are 12-19 and need to avoid tying the modern major league record for most losses in a season set by the 1962 New York Mets (40-120-1).
Chicago doesn’t come close to matching the best record of the Cleveland Spiders, who finished the season in 1899 with a 20-134 record.
The only other team in MLB history to reach 100 losses in fewer games than the White Sox was the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who finished with a 29-100-1 record.
“Obviously, nobody wants to lose 100 games with a month left,” White Sox starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon said, “but we’re just going to keep coming out here every day, practicing and just going out there and trying to win games.”
Colt Keith had three hits and three RBIs for the Tigers, who won four of five games.
Chicago has lost 100 or more games six times in franchise history and this is the first time they’ve lost consecutive seasons.
Chicago went 61-101 last season under coach Pedro Grifol, who was fired Aug. 8. Chicago is 3-11 under interim coach Grady Sizemore.
“Everybody in the locker room is aware of the record and how frustrating it is,” Sizemore said.
The White Sox suffered a franchise-worst 106 losses in 1970. Their lowest winning percentage was .325 in 1932, when they were 49-102-1.
Brian Sammons (1-1) gave up one run and three hits in 4 1/3 innings for Detroit, earning his first major league win.
Cannon (2-8) gave up five runs and eight hits in four innings for the White Sox.
“We know where we are, we know the situation isn’t good,” Chicago left fielder Andrew Benintendi said.
Benintendi and Vaughn hit back-to-back doubles off leadoff hitter Beau Brieskie to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead in the first inning.
Detroit’s Kerry Carpenter doubled, advanced to third on a fielding error by center fielder Dominic Fletcher and scored on Keith’s single to cut the lead to 2-1 in the third inning. Chicago committed four errors.
Vaughn hit his 15th solo home run off Sammons in the third inning to extend Chicago’s lead to 3-1.
Zach McKinstry singled, stole second base and scored on Parker Meadows’ triple to make it 3-2 in the fourth inning.
The Tigers scored three runs in the fifth inning to take a 5-3 lead. Carpenter, Keith and Jace Jung all tied the game with consecutive singles, but then pinch-hitter Ibañez grounded out for a fielder’s choice and Trey Sweeney singled to bring in the remaining runs.
“We’ve got some younger guys, some more athletic guys, a little bit better guys, a little bit more wins,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “Everybody’s doing their part a little bit because we want to be a winning team.”
Ibañez hit a two-run homer off Eniel de los Santos in the seventh inning and Keith added a two-run double in the eighth as the Tigers finished 65-66 and are one game away from reaching .500.
“That’s a big goal for us,” Keith said of Detroit reaching .500. “I’ve said all along that this team has great potential. We’ve got to be more consistent, but you can see we’ve been consistent the last few weeks and we’ve been playing good baseball.”
