Chicago White Sox tie American League record with 21st straight loss

(CNN) — The Chicago White Sox made the wrong kind of history on Monday, falling to the Oakland Athletics 5-1 to tie an American League record with their 21st consecutive loss.

Chicago’s losing streak is the longest since the Baltimore Orioles opened the 1988 season with 21 straight losses. They trail only the Philadelphia Phillies, who set the modern-day National League record after losing 23 straight in 1961.

“We talk about it every day,” said White Sox manager Pedro Grifol. “Everybody knows what it is. It’s 21 in a row. It sucks. It’s not fun. It’s painful. It hurts. You name it. However, you want to describe it.

“Like I said, it’s not for lack of effort. Nobody wants to come out here and lose, so we’ve just got to put a good game together and put this behind us.”

Making his major league debut, White Sox starter Ky Bush issued three straight walks to open the game. The rookie pitcher though minimized the damage by allowing only one run in the inning.

The A’s held a 1-0 lead until Andrew Benintendi drove in Andrew Vaughn with an RBI single in the top of the fourth inning. The tie, however, was short lived as the A’s scored two runs off of Bush in the next half inning to take the lead for good.

It’s been a particularly tough stretch for the White Sox, who are 0-17 since the All-Star break, in part due to facing off against playoff-contending teams in four of their last five series.

With the loss, the White Sox dropped to a league-worst 27-88 and join the 1916 Philadelphia A’s as the only teams in MLB history to lose 88-plus times in the first 115 games of a season, according to the team.

They’ll next have a chance to end the streak on Tuesday as they play their second game of the series against the Athletics.

Despite owning the second-worst record in the AL this season (47-67), the Athletics are coming off a July in which the team went an American League-best 15-9.

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