SEATTLE — The White Sox needed Lance Lynn to go deep with a taxed bullpen needing some rest on the last day of a six-game West Coast road trip.

Lynn game them seven-plus innings and a season high 114 pitches.

While he was at it, the 36-year-old right-hander struck out 16 batters over seven innings tying a franchise record held since 1954 by Jack Harshman, who struck out 16 at Boston on July 25, 1954. It was the most strikeouts by a Sox since Chris Sale had 15 on Aug. 16, 2015, against the Cubs.

It also came in a losing effort, and as Lynn knows, the Sox need to stop losing. This 5-1 loss gave them a lost series, a 2-4 trip that started in Los Angeles and dropped their record to 31-42. That was no way for a team that believes it’s still a postseason contender to begin carving away at an awful record.

“All in all my stuff was good today but we lost,” Lynn said. “It doesn’t matter how many you strike out, you have to win the game. It was a series loss for us and we need to win as many series as we can and today we weren’t able to do that.”

For his part, Lynn was magnificent. Using his full arsenal of pitches, he got 33 swings and misses. Only Jacob deGrom in 2020, Danny Duffy in 2016 and Clayton Kershaw in 2015 with 35 each have had more in the pitch tracking era since 2008.

And at his age, Lynn was the oldest pitcher to strike out 16 or more since Randy Johnson had 17 for the Diamondbacks on Sept. 14, 2002.

Lynn, who allowed a leadoff bunt in the eighth inning to Kolten Wong on his 114th pitch, was lifted by manager Pedro Grifol after throwing that one pitch in the eighth.

Lynn walked two batters and gave up four hits, including a two-run double to Julio Rodriguez in the third inning, and left trailing 2-1. Reliever Reynaldo Lopez walked two and gave up a three-run triple to Jarred Kelenic, making it 5-1.

Lynn was charged with three runs.

It was an unexpected performance, even for a former All-Star, as Lynn entered the game with a 4-6 record and 6.72 ERA. He had two games of 10 strikeouts this season but had struck out a total of 14 while allowing 22 hits (including six home runs) and seven walks in his previous three starts.

“He really mixed the pitches well, got them to good locations and did a good job reading hitters,” pitching coach Ethan Katz said. “The only mistake he made was the Julio fastball for a double. “The shape of his pitches were fantastic and location was really good, just [not] the one pitch that he missed and they capitalized on it.”