White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami putting on historic HR show

Show Caption PHOENIX — Well, maybe Munetaka Murakami won’t have a difficult time making that transition from Japan to Major League Baseball after all. In the meantime, is he ever making a whole lot of teams look foolish for ignoring him in free agency. Murakami made more history Tuesday night by homering for the fourth consecutive game in the Chicago White Sox ’s 11-5 rout over the Arizona Diamondbacks — a 434-foot shot —going where no Japanese player has ever gone before. He is not only the first Japanese-born player to hit nine homers in his first 23 games, but also the first player since at least 1900 to produce nine homers and more than 20 walks in the first 23 games of a career. The only Japanese players who have ever homered in four consecutive games at any juncture in their career are three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs All-Star outfielder Seiya Suzuki. Murakami, 26, is looking just like the dude who was Nippon Professional Baseball’s premier slugger, breaking the legendary Sadaharu Oh’s single-season home run record with 56 homers as a 22-year-old, and winning two MVP awards. Sure, the season is just three weeks old, but the strikeouts and swing-and-miss rates that spiked since his historic 2022 season, with teams concerned whether he’d make enough contact to even provide power, now are regretting that they allowed the White Sox to virtually steal Murakami with a modest two-year, $34 million contract. Murakami is soft-spoken and humble about his early heroics, saying he simply is happy that he’s contributing, but his bat is doing a whole lot of talking. Murakami is hitting .234 with nine homers — just one behind MLB leader Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros — with 17 RBI and a .978 OPS. He has struck out 33 times in 97 plate appearances, but he has also walked 22 times, giving him a .398 on-base percentage. He is everything the White Sox could have imagined, and much more. “He puts himself in a real good position every single pitch,’’ White Sox manager Will Venable said. “He’s on time. He sees the ball well. ... We’re seeing real good plate discipline. Obviously, the power is incredible. Continues to improve defensively. I think I may be slowing him down a little bit on the bases. He always wants to get out and steal some bases. But he’s just a guy that’s getting more and more comfortable every day. “Obviously, he’s having a lot of success.’’ Murakami indeed is looking quite comfortable these days, hitting four homers for a combined 1,705 feet. He reached base four times Tuesday, including his 434-foot blast off Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly, his MLB-leading third homer this season traveling 113 mph or faster off his bat. It certainly brought back memories of his 432-foot blast off Kelly in the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship game over USA. “I was able to image the pitcher a lot better because I did face him in the WBC,’’ Murakami said. “The time I hit in the WBC was a fastball, but today was a [89-mph] changeup. But I was really happy that I was able to hit it for a home run.’’ What pleases Murakami more than anything, he says, is that his home runs have helped ignite the White Sox offense. They’ve scored 33 runs in their four games on this trip, winning three of them. “We’re very much connecting from the top to the bottom in the lineup,’’ he said, “and I think it’s just really important that we really continue as a team to get good results. I hope we can keep doing that.’’ The Diamondbacks, one of several teams that had interest in Murakami but were not a finalist in the bidding, could only sit back and admire the show, feeling a tinge of jealousy. “He was on a lot of people’s radar screens,’’ Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “We knew there was a special player there. I’ve been watching him closely, and I’ve been a fan of his. “He’s going to be a pretty special player.’’ Follow Bob Nightengale on X: @Bnightengale . Facebook Twitter Email