Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today's edition is brought to you by David Adler.
He broke Sadaharu Oh's home run record in Japan. Now he's on pace for even more in the Majors.
Munetaka Murakami just keeps bashing homers. After three more over the weekend, Murakami is up to eight home runs already in his first MLB season -- tied for third-most in the Majors, behind only Yordan Alvarez and Aaron Judge.
If you thought Murakami's 56 home runs for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in 2022 were a lot (that's when he surpassed Oh's NPB mark for the most homers in a single season by a Japanese-born player) … well, Murakami is currently on a 58-homer pace for the White Sox.
Murakami's eight homers through his first 22 MLB games are twice as many as any other Japanese player has ever had -- Shohei Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki and Masataka Yoshida all hit four through their first 22 games in the big leagues.
Here are three things to know about Murakami's power surge.
1) He's hitting the ball really, really hard
Over 200 hitters have put at least 40 balls in play this season. Out of all those hitters, Murakami's 95.0 mph average exit velocity is tied for fourth-highest, behind only Oneil Cruz (97.5 mph), James Wood (96.2 mph) and Jac Caglianone (95.1 mph). But even more importantly, his barrel rate -- basically, how often he hits the ball both hard and in the air -- is also top-five in the Majors, putting Murakami in a group of star sluggers.
Highest barrel rate in 2026
Hitters with 40+ batted balls
- Aaron Judge: 28.3%
- James Wood: 27.8%
- Shohei Ohtani: 26.3%
- Munetaka Murakami: 26.2%
- Mike Trout: 25.9%
2) He can hit velocity after all
One of the big questions about Murakami when he came to the Majors from Japan was whether he'd be able to hit the higher velocity from MLB pitchers. Well, he answered that question with one huge swing this weekend.
Murakami crushed a 114.1 mph, 431-foot grand slam over the batter's eye in dead center field against the A's in Sacramento. That monster grand slam came against a 98.2 mph fastball. So much for not being able to hit high velocity.
3) He looks a lot like Kyle Schwarber
Murakami is what we call a "Three True Outcomes" hitter -- those are home runs, walks and strikeouts, which have accounted for nearly two-thirds of Murakami's plate appearance results so far this season.
He's among the MLB leaders in all three categories: tied for third in home runs (eight), third in walks (20) and tied for eighth in strikeouts (31). The home runs and walks are great. The strikeouts, not so great.
But you know who has an offensive profile that looks a lot like Murakami's right now? That's right, Schwarber. And we all know how good Schwarber is.
