Munetaka Murakami went 3-for-4 with two home runs and three RBIs and Sean Burke pitched effectively into the sixth inning, lifting the host Chicago White Sox to a 6-1 victory against the Colorado Rockies on Friday.
Chicago (83-77) moved within a half-game of the American League Central-leading Cleveland Guardians (83-76), whose game in Kansas City was still in progress when the White Sox secured the final out.
The White Sox, who on Thursday clinched their first playoff berth since 2021, hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Guardians. Chicago won for the fifth time in six games.
Murakami connected in the first and seventh innings for the third multi-homer game of his rookie season.
The Rockies (57-103) were limited to four hits while losing their fifth game in a row and falling for the eighth time in the past nine. TJ Rumfield went 2-for-4 with a solo shot in the second inning.
Burke (11-7) won his third straight start, delivering 5 1/3 sharp innings. The right-hander allowed one run and four hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.
Rockies counterpart Tomoyuki Sugano (12-12) matched his season high by tossing 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five, walked none and permitted four runs and six hits, including two long balls off the bat of his Japanese countryman, Murakami.
Greeted by a standing ovation from a sellout Rate Field crowd, the White Sox responded with two first-inning runs to take early control. Miguel Vargas put Chicago ahead with an RBI sacrifice fly before Murakami drove a 2-2 pitch from Sugano over the right field wall for a solo home run.
The solo blast in the seventh gave Murakami a club-leading 35 home runs.
Sam Antonacci had three hits for Chicago while Braden Montgomery added two. Kyle Teel (two RBIs) and Murakami provided insurance with separate run-scoring singles in the eighth.
Chicago shortstop Colson Montgomery went 0-for-3. He was called out on strikes in the fifth inning, his 224th strikeout of the season, a major league single-season record. The old mark was set in 2009 by Arizona Diamondbacks infielder Mark Reynolds.
White Sox relievers Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor and Bryan Hudson combined to pitch 3 2/3 hitless innings with one walk and four strikeouts.
–Field Level Media
