PHOENIX — Welcome to The Mune-ball Era for the White Sox.
They’re scrimping with an $82 million payroll, the third-lowest in Major League Baseball. They’re running out a slew of rookies and reclamation projects, some of them learning new positions to get their bats in the lineup. And they’re hitting the snot out of the ball, at least over the past week.
While general manager Chris Getz’s rebuilding squad might not be on a trajectory for a data-driven, Hollywood-written playoff run a la Billy Beane’s Moneyball-era Oakland Athletics, Getz’s first splashy free-agent splurge has supercharged an offense that’s finally making Sox games fun to watch again.
“We’re very much connecting from top to bottom in the lineup, and I think it’s just really important that we really continue as a team to get good results,” first-base phenom Munetaka Murakami said through an interpreter after hitting a home run for the fourth straight game of the Sox’ West Coast road trip.
The Japanese import’s two-year, $34 million contract has looked like a bigger bargain with every foot of his blasts entering play Wednesday. The last four of his nine dingers on the young season collectively traveled a third of a mile and tied him with Aaron Judge for second behind MLB home run leader Yordan Alvarez.
“I’m really analyzing the pitchers as much as possible so that I’m getting ready into the at-bats, so I’ll just try to keep doing whatever I’m doing right now,” said Murakami, who regularly admires his towering shots out of the box but is quick to share credit with his teammates.
Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas and other cogs of the rebuild would do well to just keep doing what they’ve done against the A’s and Diamondbacks, who weathered 12 Sox homers over a four-game stretch. Murakami (.234/.394/.584), Vargas (.177/.320/.392) and Montgomery (.213/.323/.500) launched the Sox’ first back-to-back-to-back blasts in six years on Tuesday.
on repeat 🔁 pic.twitter.com/y1zELxyS5e
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) April 22, 2026
It has all helped the Sox jump from MLB’s worst team OPS entering their trip to 21st (.688), and shake off mid-April vibes that scarcely could’ve been worse after getting swept at home by the Rays. Their .986 OPS and 14 homers over a seven-game stretch were both tops in baseball.
Murakami’s the one getting the international spotlight, but “I think it’s just anyone,” Montgomery said. “Everything’s contagious, hits are contagious, good energy is contagious, and I think that’s what we’re doing right now.”
“It’s just settling in. A lot of us, we’re younger guys and we haven’t really played in April, kicked off the season, stuff like that,” Montgomery said. “Everyone is playing free, easy and just committed to their plan.”
After a hitting drought over the first couple weeks of the season, manager Will Venable says his batting order is enjoying a “good regression to that mean, where we’re able to get actual results.”
“You’ve gotta slug in this league. No matter when it is in the count, you’ve got to take your shot. I think we do have a number of guys [who] can leave the ballpark and slug. And so those are the guys that you’ve got to have take some shots,” Venable said.
“We have a number of guys that maybe that’s not part of their game, and those are the guys that really need to be grinding at-bats, having that Plan-B swing, shooting the ball the other way and really extending the starting pitcher and working at-bats,” Venable said. “I think that’s a good thing about our offense, that we have a bunch of different guys that can make an impact in different ways. We’ve just got to string it all together.”
The Sox’ power surge has left only two questions: how long can they keep it up? And when will they come up with a regular dugout home run celebration?
“We’re working on it right now. We have something in mind that’s coming,” Montgomery teased. “We don’t really want to tell anyone yet, but you’ll notice it.”