{"id":617088,"date":"2026-03-10T16:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617088\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T16:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:29:22","slug":"white-soxs-munetaka-murakami-hits-grand-slam-in-japans-9-0-win-to-stay-perfect-at-world-baseball-classic-chicago-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617088\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox\u2019s Munetaka Murakami hits grand slam in Japan\u2019s 9-0 win to stay perfect at World Baseball Classic \u2013 Chicago Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defending champion Japan completed an unbeaten group stage at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/03\/05\/world-baseball-classic-cubs-white-sox\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Baseball Classic<\/a>, beating the Czech Republic 9-0 on Tuesday night behind a nine-run eighth inning capped by Munetaka Murakami\u2019s grand slam.<\/p>\n<p>After outscoring opponents 39-9 in going 4-0, Japan advanced to a quarterfinal on Saturday in Miami against Venezuela or the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n<p>Japan rested\u00a0Shohei Ohtani, who is hitting .556 with two homers, six RBIs and four walks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/03\/05\/world-baseball-classic-cubs-white-sox\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Baseball Classic: Who are the 17 Cubs and White Sox competing? And what are the big games to watch?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Czechs, the 2025 European championship bronze medalists, finished 0-4 and were outscored 39-5 while batting .167, 19th among the 20 teams and ahead of only Brazil (.130).<\/p>\n<p>Kenya Wakatsuki hit a go-ahead double in the eighth off loser Michal Kovala, who was removed after Ukyo Shuto\u2019s three-run homer. Shugo Maki drew a bases-loaded walk from Ryan Johnson, a two-way player who also appears at first base. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/02\/27\/chicago-white-sox-munetaka-murakami-wbc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">White Sox slugger Murakami<\/a> drove a fastball at the top of the strike zone 425 feet into the right-center field seats for a grand slam.<\/p>\n<p>Czech starter Ondrej (pronounced Andre) Satoria allowed six hits over 4 2\/3 innings, throwing 42 changeups among 67 pitches. His fastest offering was 79.9 mph.<\/p>\n<p>Satoria is famous in Japan.\u00a0He struck out Ohtani on three pitches in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sad,\u201d Satoria said before the game, knowing Ohtani was out of the lineup. \u201cI think a lot of fans are sad, too. Maybe he\u2019s resting for the long trip to Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Winner Yumeto Kanemaru struck out five over two perfect innings.<\/p>\n<p>All of the Czech players have day jobs. Satoria, who is retiring from the national team, is an electrician and manager Pavel Chadim \u2013 that\u2019s Dr. Chadim \u2013 is a neurologist.<\/p>\n<p>Chadim wore the 2025 European championship bronze medal to an interview session.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have this medal because I want to show to some people in the world that we are not baseball tourists,\u201d Chadim said. \u201cWe are doing baseball as professionals. We don\u2019t want excuses. We play as professionals on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending champion Japan completed an unbeaten group stage at the World Baseball Classic, beating the Czech Republic 9-0&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,853,4,185,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-617088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-white-sox","16":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116205831149154389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}