Murakami stays red hot as White Sox pour it on in 11-5 victory

Munetaka Murakami smashed his fourth home run in four games, kicking off a back-to-back-to-back homer parade in the second. | (Getty Images) After a truly insane nine innings of baseball, the White Sox (9-14) won their second game in a row, taking the first game of the series against the Diamondbacks (13-10), 11-5. The South Side bats were on fire, the pitching was solid, and the defense was making diving plays all over the place — it would probably be easier if I told you what didn’t happen.

It’s been a minute since I was this excited watching the Chicago White Sox play baseball, so bear with me as I am still slightly in shock. Outhitting the D-backs 14-8, the Good Guys smashed six of those for extra bases: a double, triple, and four home runs. Although they exploded for 11 runs, they did still manage to go 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base, but we’re not talking about that right now.

Nearly everyone got a hit, except for Everson Pereira and Reese McGuire, who still managed to drive in at least one run. There was so much offensive production from this team tonight that half of the lineup (five batters) produced multi-hit games. Sean Burke mostly cruised through his start and was able to maintain control, though the same couldn’t be said for righthander Merrill Kelly.

The Good Guys nearly batted through the order in the top of the first, and they wasted no time pouring runs on Kelly and the Diamondbacks, dropping a four-spot to give Burke plenty of cushion before he even threw a pitch. The Sox immediately caused trouble to start the game with consecutive base hits from Andrew Benintendi and Munetaka Murakami, and Miguel Vargas walked to load the bases. Keeping his momentum up from Sunday after mashing a long ball, Colson Montgomery squared one up and ripped a two-run double to center to give the South Siders a two-run lead, 2-0.