CHICAGO – It would have been easy for White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami to celebrate a strong individual night during his team’s 3-1 victory over the Tigers Thursday night at Rate Field.
Murakami, who was an American League All-Star as a rookie, entered the evening in a 5-for-52 funk with two homers and six RBIs in September and was 20-for-154 since the start of August with 77 total strikeouts. Those numbers changed with one swing of the bat in the first inning against Framber Valdez, launching a Statcast-projected 423-foot drive to center, scoring Chase Meidroth and Randal Grichuk ahead of him.
There was an eighth-inning triple for Murakami, marking the first of his career, and he was also part of a great defensive play to end the top of the eighth. But individual glory is not Murakami’s story.
“I have responsibilities to be that player. I’m being paid by the team and to be accountable for what I do, even if I strike out, or I hit. It doesn’t really matter,” said Murakami through interpreter Kenzo Yagi. “I’m responsible for who I am, to be a baseball player and go out every single day to get the best results to help the team win.
“Winning is all that matters at the moment right now. Giving 100 percent every single day is what I need to do.”
This hard-fought victory briefly erased the memory of two straight tough losses in Cleveland (78-75), knocking the White Sox (78-75) out of first in the American League Central for the first time since July 3. But they forged a tie on Thursday with the idle Guardians, who host the Athletics this weekend, but Chicago owns the tiebreaker with a 7-6 season-series edge.
The White Sox have three more games vs. Detroit (72-81) this weekend, and then travel to Kansas City for three before hosting Colorado to end this outstanding campaign. They also moved closer to the playoffs on Thursday, with Boston coming back to beat Texas and giving the White Sox a two-game lead over the Rangers and Blue Jays for the last AL Wild Card spot, while holding the tiebreaker on both.
Exciting times for a team coming off three straight seasons with 100-plus losses and just two seasons removed from a Modern Era record 121 defeats.
“Yeah, we feel great. I think this is what this team is about,” third baseman Miguel Vargas said. “We have only nine games [left], but still a lot of things can happen in nine games. But we are ready and locked in for these nine.”
“There’s not a lot of egos on this team. That’s what’s made us so good,” White Sox starter Erick Fedde said. “Everyone’s willing to do their part, and it’s been a good run of that, and we’ll keep going.”
Fedde allowed one run over 4 2/3 innings with six strikeouts, but it was Bryan Hudson (5-4) who earned the victory with 1 1/3 scoreless innings in relief. Hudson entered in the fifth, with two outs and Gleyber Torres on third and Dillon Dingler on second. He then struck out Riley Greene with a 2-2 sweeper.
Detroit’s runners were in that position because Grichuk held Torres to a single on a line drive off the left field wall. Grichuk also threw out Spencer Torkelson leading off the sixth when he tried to stretch a single into the double.
Grant Taylor (9th save) worked the final 2 1/3 innings, getting help from Murakami and Vargas on the web gem to end the eighth. With Brett Callahan on first and two outs, Vargas made a valiant effort to nail Max Clark at first on a high-hopper.
When Clark was ruled safe, Callahan tried to take third despite the Tigers being down by two runs. Murakami made a perfect throw to Vargas, and the original safe call was overturned by video replay challenge.
Before the game, the White Sox honored Tim Anderson, the two-time All-Star. The author of the ‘Stalk-off’ home run at the first Field of Dreams game in 2021 retired on Aug. 10.
Maybe Anderson and his family return on Friday to keep up the good luck? The White Sox certainly hope Murakami’s power stays on display, even if he doesn’t care about individual numbers.
“One hundred percent. I know there's a lot of criticism of him lately, but we all know in this clubhouse what he’s capable,” Vargas said. “He’s one of the biggest reasons where we are right now and seeing him doing that tonight was great.”
“Just going out every single day, going for that win,” Murakami said. “When the season is done, I don’t want to be regretting anything at all. Leaving everything out there is my last goal and let’s see how it goes.”