Munetaka Murakami gave the White Sox exactly the jolt they needed Saturday night, hitting two home runs in an 8-3 win over the Cubs that pushed Chicago back above.500 at 23-22. In front of a sellout crowd of 38,795, the White Sox hit five homers and turned a tight cross-town game into a statement night.
Murakami’s two shots off Jameson Taillon were the first multi-homer game of his MLB career and his first two-homer game for the Sox. Miguel Vargas, Colson Montgomery and Andrew Benintendi also went deep, giving Chicago a lineup that kept forcing the issue inning after inning. Davis Martin did his part on the mound, working six innings and allowing one run.
The performance mattered because it arrived after a stretch that had raised real questions about Murakami’s bat. Entering Saturday, he had 15 home runs, was one behind Aaron Judge for the American League lead, and still led the league in strikeouts with 64 even while ranking fourth in walks with 35. He had been homerless from April 5-12, struck out 10 times and hit.043 over that span, a cold spell that made his recent surge look even more important.
Saturday was the latest step in that recovery. After the rough stretch, Murakami homered in five straight games before being held in check in the previous six-game dry spell, then broke out again with the kind of power display that has come to define his early run in the majors. White Sox manager Will Venable said he had told the club Murakami was fine, and he pointed to the hitter’s steady approach and swing decisions as the reason the ball keeps leaving the yard.
That patience is part of why the White Sox standings now look different than they did at the start of the night. Murakami, Vargas and Montgomery have quickly become one of baseball’s best power trios, and Vargas said the group had prepared for this kind of moment. He also said it is not just the three of them, but the whole lineup doing a better job in every at-bat, creating the chances to drive in runs and score. Chicago did that against the Cubs, and it did it in a game that felt bigger than one result in May.
Martin called Murakami a superstar, comparing the way he impacts a game to the sort of presence top players such as Mike Trout, Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez bring every night. Murakami sounded equally happy to be part of it, saying his teammates are the centerpiece and that he is glad to keep chasing days like this with them. For the White Sox, the formula is simple enough: keep getting quality starts, keep getting loud contact, and keep turning nights like Saturday into a habit.
