{"id":652020,"date":"2026-03-30T06:45:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652020\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T06:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:45:53","slug":"three-games-three-homers-for-white-sox-slugger-munetaka-murakami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652020\/","title":{"rendered":"Three games, three homers for White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILWAUKEE \u2014 Munetaka Murakami<\/a> of the Chicago White Sox<\/a> and\u00a0Chase DeLauter\u00a0of the Cleveland Guardians have accomplished something in the last week that had been done only twice before.<\/p>\n

The two rookies homered in each of their first three major league games. According to Sportradar, the only other players to hit home runs in at least their first three Major League Baseball games were Trevor Story with the Colorado Rockies in 2016 and Kyle Lewis with the Seattle Mariners in 2019.<\/p>\n

Murakami said after the White Sox’s\u00a09-7 loss\u00a0to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday that he’s \u201ctruly grateful and happy\u201d to achieve that type of milestone but added he still has plenty to work on as he begins his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s still a long way to go and lots of ways to improve, so that’s what I’ll keep on doing in the upcoming days,\u201d Murakami said through interpreter Kenzo Yagi.<\/p>\n

Story owns the MLB record with homers in his first four career games. DeLauter will try to match that when the Guardians play at Seattle later Sunday.<\/p>\n

Murakami, 26, added his name to the club Sunday by sending a 3-2 pitch from Milwaukee’s Brandon Sproat\u00a0over the wall\u00a0in right-center and into the White Sox bullpen in the second inning. The Japanese slugger homered off Jake Woodford in the ninth inning\u00a0of his debut\u00a0Thursday and went deep against Chad Patrick in the fourth inning\u00a0Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe park doesn\u2019t seem big enough to hold him, you know what I mean?” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He\u2019s impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White Sox could use some good news. They’ve lost over 100 games each of the last three seasons and they were outscored a combined 20-3 in their first two games this year before blowing a 7-2 lead on Sunday.<\/p>\n

But the emergence of Murakami at least gives them some reason for hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all translates from his work, his preparation and things like that,\u201d White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery said. \u201cIt’s one thing that I respect a lot. He comes in day in and day out and he’s doing stuff. He never skips anything. He’s always working on his craft. He’s a hard worker. To me, I think it just makes sense why he’s going out there and he’s performing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murakami signed a two-year, $34 million\u00a0contract\u00a0with the White Sox in December after hitting 246 homers over eight seasons with the Yakult Swallows of Japan\u2019s Central League \u2014 including a 56-homer season in 2022.<\/p>\n

He also struck out 977 times out of 3,780 plate appearances in Japan, leading to some questions about his chances of success in the majors. Murakami has four strikeouts already \u2014 including three on Sunday \u2014 but he also has walked four times and owns a .538 on-base percentage.<\/p>\n

White Sox pitcher Anthony Kay, who played in Japan the last two years, had no doubt that Murakami’s power would translate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched him two years in Japan,” Kay said. \u201cI’m not surprised by it. I know some people are, but I’ve seen it, so I’m not surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLauter, 24, has four homers in his first three games.<\/p>\n

The outfielder went deep twice in his MLB debut on Thursday and became the fifth player in the Guardians’ 126-year history to homer in his\u00a0first career regular-season at bat. He added a\u00a0solo shot\u00a0off Seattle’s George Kirby on Friday. DeLauter struck out three times Saturday but hit a\u00a0two-run blast\u00a0off Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz in the 10th inning of a 6-5 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat shows the maturity right there,\u201d Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said Saturday. \u201cHe had a tough night up until that point, and obviously facing one of the best closers in the league \u2014 if not the best closer in the league \u2014 and to hit a ball oppo in Seattle at night when it’s cold, that takes some kind of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland had drafted DeLauter out of James Madison with the 16th pick in 2022. He made the Guardians’ season-opening roster after hitting .459 with a .535 on-base percentage and three homers in 14 spring training games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE \u2014 Munetaka Murakami of the Chicago White Sox and\u00a0Chase DeLauter\u00a0of the Cleveland Guardians have accomplished something in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,4,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-652020","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-mlb","13":"tag-white-sox","14":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116316783348890589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652020","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=652020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}