White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami putting on historic HR show
Munetaka Murakami homered in a fourth consecutive game on April 21, going where no Japanese player has ever gone before.
PHOENIX — Well, maybe Munetaka Murakami won’t have a difficult time making that transition from Japan to Major League Baseball after all. In the meantime, is he ever making a whole lot of teams look foolish for ignoring him in free agency. Murakami made more history Tuesday night by homering for the fourth consecutive game in the Chicago White Sox ’s 11-5 rout over the Arizona Diamondbacks — a 434-foot shot —going where no Japanese player has ever gone before.
He is not only the first Japanese-born player to hit nine homers in his first 23 games, but also the first player since at least 1900 to produce nine homers and more than 20 walks in the first 23 games of a career. The only Japanese players who have ever homered in four consecutive games at any juncture in their career are three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs All-Star outfielder Seiya Suzuki. MUNETAKA MURAKAMI HOMERS FOR A 4TH STRAIGHT GAME!
pic. twitter. com/68FsSqpqi1 — MLB (@MLB) April 22, 2026 Murakami, 26, is looking just like the dude who was Nippon Professional Baseball’s premier slugger, breaking the legendary Sadaharu Oh’s single-season home run record with 56 homers as a 22-year-old, and winning two MVP awards.
Sure, the season is just three weeks old, but the strikeouts and swing-and-miss rates that spiked since his historic 2022 season, with teams concerned whether he’d make enough contact to even provide power, now are regretting that they allowed the White Sox to virtually steal Murakami with a modest two-year, $34 million contract. Murakami is soft-spoken and humble about his early heroics, saying he simply is happy that he’s contributing, but his bat is doing a whole lot of talking. Murakami is hitting .