{"id":764310,"date":"2026-07-29T06:09:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764310\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:09:27","slug":"column-chicago-white-soxs-munetaka-murakami-devastated-by-earthquake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/764310\/","title":{"rendered":"Column: Chicago White Sox’s Munetaka Murakami ‘devastated’ by earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami said after Tuesday\u2019s game with the New York Yankees his family was fine after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake<\/a> devastated his Japanese hometown of Kumamoto.<\/p>\n

At least 13 people were dead and many were injured in the earthquake, which Murakami learned about early Tuesday morning. He played Tuesday and went 1-for-4 in the Sox\u2019s 3-2 loss to the Yankees.<\/p>\n

Murakami said his parents, who threw out a first pitch<\/a> at Rate Field on his bobblehead day Sunday, canceled the remainder of their stay in Chicago and flew home Tuesday morning after learning of the earthquake.<\/p>\n

Murakami said he was \u201csurprised and devastated\u201d by the news, which he found out when he got home after Monday\u2019s game on the South Side. The town also was hit by an earthquake 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s really hard to swallow,\u201d Murakami said through an interpreter. \u201cIt\u2019s a natural disaster, so it\u2019s nothing anyone can really expect at the moment. I was deeply in shock. And moreover, from the (one) 10 years back, (the area) was just beginning to recover in full form, so it\u2019s really unfortunate this actually happened again. It\u2019s a very unfortunate event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murakami was able to contact family and friends back home and reported that all were safe, and that his parents\u2019 home escaped damage. He said he would help relief efforts any way he could, and that he was thinking of his fans back in Japan while playing.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami hugs his mother Fumiyo Murakami after she threw out the first pitch to her son before the Sox game against the Houston Astros at Rate Field on Sunday, July 26, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cI always get a lot of cheers from everybody back in Japan and that\u2019s what gives me power to play baseball and get out there,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a professional baseball player, I would like to give back by playing hard and something to cheer about for the people back in Kumamoto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murakami spoke to the Japanese media after the 3-2 loss, and his remarks were then translated for the American media.<\/p>\n

In the game, a ninth-inning Sox rally fell short before a large crowd of 33,743 at Rate Field, most of whom stuck around for the ending.<\/p>\n

The Sox players are looking at their four-game showdown with the Yankees as a playoff-type series<\/a>, playing like everything is on the line on a cool July night.<\/p>\n

But to make it to October, they\u2019re going to first have to prove they\u2019re playoff-worthy, which the Sox have failed to do in the first two games of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are playing well,\u201d manager Will Venable said afterward. \u201cI think the main point for us right is defensively to clean some things up, (and) baserunning clean some things up, which I thought we did a good job of today. Gotta keep moving forward finding ways to score against really good pitchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerrit Cole silenced the crowd at the Rate, throwing six shutout innings with seven strikeouts as the Yankees beat the Sox for the fourth time in five meetings this season.<\/p>\n

Photos: New York Yankees 3, Chicago White Sox 2<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Chase Meidroth\u2019s two-out, two-run home run off David Bednar in the ninth made things interesting, but Bednar struck Everson Pereira out on a splitter to end it.<\/p>\n

Cole stifled the Sox on four hits over six innings, and made a highlight-reel catch of a Colson Montgomery popup in the second, flipping it out of his glove and then snaring it with his right hand.<\/p>\n

The Sox will not win for the second straight series at home, and have dropped five of their last seven. Their American League Central lead over the Cleveland Guardians was down to 1 1\/2 games after the Guardians won earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

Sox starter Anthony Kay had one bad inning, and that was all the Yankees needed with Cole on the mound.\u00a0It\u2019s not surprising to be dominated by Cole, who makes $36 million per year, or more than three times the combined salaries of the current White Sox starters.<\/p>\n

But the Sox also looked helpless on Saturday against Houston\u2019s Hunter Brown. If they make the playoffs, the Sox are going to have to learn how to beat pitchers like Cole and Brown, and quality teams like the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, who they meet this weekend.<\/p>\n

After Kay struck out the side in the first, the Yankees answered with three runs in the second on Anthony Volpe\u2019s RBI double and a two-run single by Max Schuemann.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve done that,\u201d Kay said of his three first-inning strikeouts. \u201cIt\u2019s cool. I thought I\u2019d have a good one after that and kind of got humbled after the second inning. Then you\u2019ve got to lock back in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago White Sox starting pitcher Anthony Kay throws against the New York Yankees in the first inning at Rate Field on July 28, 2026, in Chicago. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Kay allowed only one more hit the rest of the way, lasting 5 1\/3 innings. He hasn\u2019t pitched six innings since June 22 against the Guardians, and Sox starters have only two starts of six or more innings since the All-Star break \u2014 both from Sean Burke.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s put more pressure on the bullpen, which has been a strength thus far but could be tiring with the recent workload. Monday\u2019s MLB trade deadline might help matters, but the Sox have to add starting and relief help, along with a catcher and a left-handed bat for the bench.<\/p>\n

With the Sox in a pennant race, little things matter, and no one is going to pat them on the back for a moral victory, as they might have in a close loss one year ago. Venable remained confident the Sox aren\u2019t in a slide, despite the 1-4 record on the homestand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s just how the chips fall and this stretch here at home just hasn\u2019t been as clean and as good as we hoped for,\u201d he said. \u201cGot an opportunity tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The degree of difficulty only increases on Wednesday when Yankees All-Star Cam Schlitter faces Davis Martin in Game 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami said after Tuesday\u2019s game with the New York Yankees his family was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[10945,5,49,94541,4,256,73,1690,62,2548,2547,8567,998,142],"class_list":["post-764310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-yankees","tag-anthony-kay","tag-baseball","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-japan-earthquake","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkyankees","tag-rate-field","tag-will-venable","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117001779170523710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764310","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=764310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}