{"id":663431,"date":"2026-04-04T21:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663431\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T21:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:17:21","slug":"white-soxs-munetaka-murakami-making-mlb-history-even-shohei-ohtani-hasnt-achieved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663431\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox’s Munetaka Murakami making MLB history even Shohei Ohtani hasn’t achieved"},"content":{"rendered":"

White Sox’s Munetaka Murakami making MLB history even Shohei Ohtani hasn’t achieved <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Munetaka Murakami’s free agency was awfully slow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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It finally ended in late December when the Chicago White Sox<\/a> signed the Japanese slugger to a two-year, $34 million deal — way below his expected market value.<\/p>\n

Murakami’s tremendous power was a significant factor in what made him a superstar in Nippon Professional Baseball with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, and he’s brought that light tower power with him to the Majors.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old is setting records that not even Shohei Ohtani<\/a> accomplished through his first eight career MLB games.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Jacob DeGrom is only 149 strikeouts from 2,000 for his career<\/a><\/p>\n

“Munetaka Murakami\u2019s four home runs are the most by a Japanese-born player in his first 8 career MLB games,” MLB.com’s Sarah Langs wrote on X on Saturday.<\/p>\n

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Murakami drove a 1-0 93.9 mph sinker from left-hander Brendon Little of the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> over the head of center fielder Daulton Varsho for a two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth.<\/p>\n

Much was said about Murakami’s inability to consistently hit fastballs<\/a> over 93 mph during the offseason, but he’s proving doubters wrong thus far. The White Sox may have found a not-so-hidden gem.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White Sox’s Munetaka Murakami making MLB history even Shohei Ohtani hasn’t achieved originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,1208,138,49,2561,854,2102,403,6,4,73,2353,40,536,1939,468,4081,70,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-663431","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-brendon-little","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-white-sox","12":"tag-chicagowhitesox","13":"tag-daulton-varsho","14":"tag-hunter-greene","15":"tag-jacob-degrom","16":"tag-jesus-luzardo","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-munetaka-murakami","19":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","20":"tag-phillies","21":"tag-reds","22":"tag-sarah-langs","23":"tag-shohei-ohtani","24":"tag-tokyo-yakult-swallows","25":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","26":"tag-white-sox","27":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116348521342823945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663431","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=663431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}