{"id":766851,"date":"2026-08-01T04:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/766851\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T04:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:24:17","slug":"chicago-white-sox-hit-4-home-runs-in-6-1-win-vs-tampa-bay-rays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/766851\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox hit 4 home runs in 6-1 win vs. Tampa Bay Rays"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Chicago White Sox trio of Miguel Vargas, Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery<\/a> joined rare company Friday.<\/p>\n

The three homered in the same game for the fifth time this season, which according to Elias ties the major-league (10th time) and franchise (second time) records.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the lineup, having three guys who can hit the ball really well is always a threat to the opposing team,\u201d Murakami said through an interpreter. \u201cSo we just want to continue that and contribute to the team win and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes Munetaka Murakami \u2018special\u2019 \u2014 and other views from the Chicago White Sox director of hitting<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Andrew Benintendi also homered Friday for the Sox in a 6-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays in front of 20,661 at Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n

Vargas, Murakami and Montgomery joined the 2004 grouping of Joe Crede, Paul Konerko and Jos\u00e9 Valent\u00edn as Sox trios to accomplish the feat. The last time a major-league trio did so was in 2019, by Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager and Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have those guys right in the middle of your lineup do that five times is really special,\u201d Sox manager Will Venable said. \u201cAnd obviously tonight that was huge. To be able to get a really good pitcher like that who was really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake Colson for example, first couple of at-bats (Rays starter Nick) Martinez didn\u2019t give him anything to hit at all. And then finally he got something to hit, and it\u2019s nice to see him do that. A great job and nice to have some slug there in the middle of the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pop helped the first-place Sox extend their lead in the American League Central. They now have three-game edge over the Cleveland Guardians, who lost 4-1 to the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhite Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas high-fives teammates in the dugout after hitting a solo home run against the Rays in the first inning Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Mike Carlson\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Vargas began the power display, hitting a home run \u2014 his 23rd of the season \u2014 with two outs in the first inning. It went 433 feet and had an exit velocity of 107.8 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe continues to take good swings on good pitches, and make good swing decisions, and you kind of feel like he\u2019s really settled in all year, just having those consistent at-bats where he always has a chance,\u201d Venable said.<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhite Sox designated hitter Andrew Benintendi high-fives teammates in the dugout after hitting a solo home run against the Rays in the second inning Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Mike Carlson\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Benintendi\u2019s home run in the second inning, his 11th, went 405 feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been really consistent,\u201d Venable said. \u201cMaybe didn\u2019t get off to his biggest, best start but got into a nice stretch where he\u2019s been really consistent and really hitting the ball hard. Feel like he\u2019s always hitting the ball hard. And he\u2019s come through in a lot of big spots for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WhiteWhite Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run against the Rays in the third inning Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Mike Carlson\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Murakami extended the lead to 4-0 with his two-run blast \u2014 his 24th \u2014 to left-center in the third inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel like he\u2019s covering everything,\u201d Venable said.<\/p>\n

The Rays\u2019 lone run came in the fourth on a solo home run by Junior Caminero, his 30th.<\/p>\n

Sox starter Erick Fedde allowed one run on four hits with six strikeouts and no walks in five innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my better ones of the year, I think,\u201d Fedde said. \u201cFelt like I really had a good three-pitch mix going and just able to keep the guys off-balanced, throwing the cutter up and being able to backdoor the sweeper just makes it, I feel like, really tough to cover the whole plate. The game plan worked out well.\u201d<\/p>\n

He appreciated the offensive support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey make my job easy when they give me big leads and I know if I can put up quality innings and keep it close, they are probably going to add on,\u201d Fedde said. \u201cThe power on this team is unbelievable. It\u2019s fun to be on our side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fedde later added: \u201cWhen the guys are hot and swinging like that, I think we are arguably one of the best lineups in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sox added on in the sixth when Montgomery hit his two-run home run, which went 425 feet, to extend the lead to 6-1. The shortstop has a team-high 25 home runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen (Vargas) hits a homer or Mune hits a homer, it\u2019s just one of those things where it kind of just eases the pressure off of you of not really having to do too much,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cSo when both of them, (Vargas) starting the game off hitting a homer and getting us going, it\u2019s \u2018All right, we\u2019re ahead now,\u2019 now everybody plays to our strengths.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s definitely a weapon, having those three. Can\u2019t count out (Benintendi) too. (Benintendi) hits homers. I think our offense is starting to click.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Chicago White Sox trio of Miguel Vargas, Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery joined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[1000,5,138,49,2561,10448,4154,4,73,68,396,94806,94713,94807,2562,998],"class_list":["post-766851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-white-sox","tag-andrew-benintendi","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chicagowhitesox","tag-colson-montgomery","tag-miguel-vargas","tag-mlb","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-white-sox","tag-white-sox-rays-score","tag-white-sox-results","tag-white-sox-score","tag-whitesox","tag-will-venable"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117018353373361850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766851","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=766851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}