White Sox grind out another win, 5-4

Did Munetaka Murakami homer on Friday? YUP. | (Photo by Michael Hirschuber/Getty Images) For a second there, it seemed like South Side Sox recaps might simply turn into Munetaka Murakami home-run watches.

Based on the flat start to Friday’s game, a fairly hapless team effort against a mediocre opponent, perhaps. But the Good Guys rallied late, scraping and scrapping their way to four runs in their final three frames to eke out the win, 5-4. But let’s get right to the shot that stopped the fizzless White Sox offense, back in the fourth inning.

Already down, 1-0, Murakami reached a tie atop the MLB home run leaderboard with a ball that, off the bat of 99% of hitters in the game, had no business leaving the park: View Link Murakami left the yard on a changeup, weight fighting to stay back on the ball — and off of the end of the bat, to boot! It’s the kind of swing you might lay out in a backyard Wiffle ball game, only Mune took his in the majors and sent it 415 feet away on 104 mph contact. The rookie is, simply, a beast.

Better, Murakami’s homer broke a streak of 10 straight hitless at-bats against a ragtag assemblage of Nationals bullpen arms. But Washington came right back in the fifth, after a single, (another) catcher’s interference from Edgar Quero and walk packed the sacks. The lead run came home on another walk, although in starter Erick Fedde’s defense, the lead was lost on a poor check-swing call on a full count.