{"id":772735,"date":"2026-05-04T14:20:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/772735\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T14:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:20:41","slug":"nearly-half-of-munetaka-murakamis-hits-have-been-homers-it-takes-a-lot-to-sustain-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/772735\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly half of Munetaka Murakami’s hits have been homers. It takes a lot to sustain that"},"content":{"rendered":"

After three straight 100-loss seasons \u2014 including a record 121 defeats in 2024 \u2014 the Chicago White Sox<\/a> needed a little excitement.<\/p>\n

Munetaka Murakami<\/a> has certainly provided that.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old infielder from Japan is tied with Aaron Judge<\/a> for the major league lead with 13 home runs. That accounts for nearly half of Murakami\u2019s hits so far this season. He has 14 singles and no doubles or triples.<\/p>\n

This type of all-or-nothing production would be quite rare if it continues for an entire season. So far, 48.1% of Murakami\u2019s hits have been homers. The single-season record \u2014 among players who qualified for the batting title \u2014 is 46.8% by Barry Bonds. He did it during his famous 2001 season, when he slugged a record 73 home runs and had 156 hits.<\/p>\n

Next in line are two of Mark McGwire\u2019s best years. He had 70 homers on 152 hits (46.1%) in 1998, and 65 homers on 145 hits (44.8%) in 1999. Only nine players have homered on at least 40% of their hits, but not all of them needed stratospheric home run totals to do it. Joey Gallo<\/a> hit 41 home runs on 94 hits (43.6%) in 2017, finishing with a .209 average. That might be a more reasonable comp for Murakami, who is batting .223.<\/p>\n

Following Murakami\u2019s lead, the White Sox rank 28th in the major leagues in batting average and ninth in home runs. Colson Montgomery<\/a> is hitting .227 with nine homers. It was an encouraging week for Chicago, which had a chance to reach .500 on Sunday but lost to San Diego \u2014 the end of a five-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

Murakami signed a two-year, $34 million contract in the offseason to come over from Japan and join the White Sox. Montgomery, meanwhile, is 24 and under team control for a while. On the pitching side, left-hander Noah Schultz<\/a> has made his debut this season and is 2-1 with a 2.53 ERA.<\/p>\n

And the White Sox also have the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n

Trivia time<\/p>\n

Who holds the single-season record for the White Sox in percentage of hits for a home run?<\/p>\n

ABS impact<\/p>\n

So far there doesn\u2019t seem to be a huge correlation between success with the automated ball-strike system and winning. The teams with the most successful ABS challenges are the Twins (52), Rockies (50), Marlins (46), Athletics<\/a> (45) and Royals (44). Only the A\u2019s are above .500 from that group.<\/p>\n

On a percentage basis, the teams with the best success rate have been the Diamondbacks (64.3%), Padres (62.3%), Royals (62%), Tigers (60.7%) and Reds (59.6%). San Diego, Detroit and Cincinnati have winning records.<\/p>\n

Performance of the week<\/p>\n

Ranger Suarez<\/a> struck out 10 in eight one-hit innings for the Boston Red Sox<\/a> in a 5-0 win over Toronto on Monday night. That was a third straight victory for the struggling Red Sox, but they\u2019ve dropped four of five since. Suarez left Sunday\u2019s start after four innings because of hamstring issues.<\/p>\n

Comeback of the week<\/p>\n

The Atlanta Braves<\/a> scored seven runs in the last three innings to beat Colorado 8-6 on Friday night. The Braves were down 6-1 in the seventh. They scored a run that inning and then four more in the eighth, with Mauricio Dub\u00f3n\u2019s bases-loaded triple the highlight. Michael Harris II<\/a>\u2019s two-run homer in the top of the ninth put Atlanta ahead.<\/p>\n

The Rockies\u2019 win probability peaked at 97.7% according to Baseball Savant.<\/p>\n

After sweeping three straight at Colorado, the Braves have an 8 1\/2-game lead in the NL East. Atlanta also has the best run differential in baseball at plus-81.<\/p>\n

Trivia answer<\/p>\n

Adam Dunn hit 41 homers on 110 hits (37.3%) in 2012, finishing with a .204 average. That also was the year he set the American League record by striking out 222 times.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Noah Trister, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three straight 100-loss seasons \u2014 including a record 121 defeats in 2024 \u2014 the Chicago White Sox…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":772736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-772735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116516751214574293","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}