White Sox’ Munetaka Murakami getting hot at perfect time, homers twice in win
White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami had 54 at-bats against Rockies right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Sugano largely owned Murakami, holding him to a .204 batting average. But Murakami took him deep twice.
In their first meeting in Major League Baseball on Friday, Murakami also took him deep twice.
“Mune” hit his 34th homer in the first inning and his 35th in the seventh, solo shots that helped the Sox beat the Rockies 6-1 at Rate Field. Murakami, who added an RBI single in the eighth, is getting hot at the perfect time as the Sox try to catch the Guardians in the American League Central and build momentum heading into the postseason.
In his last eight games, Murakami has an OPS of 1.272 with four homers and 12 RBI. He became the second Japanese-born player in MLB history with at least 35 homers in a season, joining the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani (four times). He also joined Jose Abreu (36 in 2014) and Ron Kittle (35 in 1983) as the only Sox rookies to hit 35-plus homers in a season.
“It’s right on time, and it’s great to see,” manager Will Venable said. “We know how impactful he can be when he’s right and feeling good. Smushing some baseballs today, which was great to see. The contact from him — if he hits it, he’s going to hit hard.”
And he can hit it anywhere. His first homer went 386 feet to right field; his second went 412 feet to center. He also has been known to hit some to the opposite field. In fact, 29% of Murakami’s homers have gone to center, left-center or left; the rest have gone to right-center or right.
“He’s such a tough AB when he’s rolling like he is,” said right-hander Sean Burke, the beneficiary of Murakami’s blasts. “You see two balls launched, one pull side, one oppo. Just the power he has, he’s such a dangerous bat.”
He might be a bit more dangerous than he has been. Murakami said he has been working on his lower-body strength in the last two weeks in his never-ending pursuit of improvement.
“It’s not like I haven’t been doing any lower-body strengthening,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s more evolving. I’m adding on to something that is needed at the moment because the body changes. It lessens the other things that I have to worry about, so I’m able to focus on the at-bats more.”
As for beating Sugano, Murakami wasn’t about to gloat.
“Sugano has been in the majors for quite a while,” Murakami said. “Yes, we had our matchups in the past, but it was different, and I was able to pull through today.”