Murakami hits 10th HR
- Munetaka Murakami hit his 10th home run of the season in his team's 24th game. (x.com) - That pacing made him the fastest Japanese MLB player to reach 10 homers, surpassing Shohei Ohtani's mark. (x.com) - Early-season power displays like this are changing rank lists and how teams scout matchups day-to-day. (x.com)
Munetaka Murakami hit his 10th home run in his 24th Major League game on April 22, putting the White Sox rookie on the fastest 10-homer pace ever for a Japanese-born player. (espn.com) The homer came in Chicago’s 11-7 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, a 451-foot drive to right-center in the seventh inning off Ryan Thompson. Murakami has now homered in five straight games. (espn.com) That streak tied the Major League rookie record and also matched a White Sox franchise mark. ESPN said Murakami became the 13th rookie since 1900 to homer in five consecutive games. (espn.com) Murakami’s 10 homers were second in the majors through April 22, trailing only Houston’s Yordan Alvarez with 11. Eight of Murakami’s 10 had come on the road. (espn.com; rotowire.com) The start is changing the way Murakami is discussed in the league because he did not arrive as an unknown rookie. Before signing with Chicago in December 2025, he had already hit 246 home runs in eight seasons with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in Nippon Professional Baseball. (espn.com; npb.jp) His reputation in Japan was built on one huge season in 2022, when he hit 56 home runs and broke Sadaharu Oh’s record for the most in a season by a Japanese-born player. Major League Baseball said he also won the Triple Crown that year at age 22. (mlb.com; mlb.com) Chicago bet on that power with a two-year, $34 million contract after Murakami was posted from Japan. The White Sox announced the deal on December 21, 2025. (mlb.com) Through 24 games, Murakami was batting.256 with a 1.026 OPS, 19 runs batted in and 21 walks against 32 strikeouts. His game log shows home runs in each of his first three games from March 26 to March 29, then another burst of five straight from April 18 to April 22. (espn.com) The comparison point is Shohei Ohtani, who had already reset the long-term Japanese-born career home run record in April 2024 when he passed Hideki Matsui with his 176th Major League homer. Murakami is not chasing that total yet, but his first month has moved his name into the same early-power conversations. (reuters.com; espn.com) For now, the number that keeps following Murakami is 10 in 24. In late April, that is enough to put every series and every scouting report on notice. (espn.com; usatoday.com)
