Munetaka Murakami, Grant Taylor deliver more postseason magic for White Sox as they shut down Guardians in ALDS Game 1

· Yahoo Sports

CLEVELAND — Months before he played his first game as a member of the Chicago White Sox, Munetaka Murakami endeared himself to a star-starved fan base, with his jovial energy and infectious enthusiasm about his jump from Japan’s NPB to MLB on display in his introductory media conference in December.

Murakami fielded questions from local Chicago media, his personality shining through with each answer. Asked what makes him such a dangerous hitter, Murakami gave his interpreter, Kenzo Yagi, a break and grinned. 

Visit betsport.cv for more information.

“Power,” he said in English. “Power,” he repeated, his smile growing. “I have power.”

He sure does.

Thirty-five regular-season homers later — two of them on his bobblehead day— Murakami arrived in October as the biggest name on the most unlikely of postseason teams. His was a rookie season to remember, a transformative campaign that helped elevate the White Sox from a rebuilding club with 1% preseason playoff odds to a legitimate contender in the wide-open American League. And in Chicago’s 3-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in ALDS Game 1 on Saturday, Murakami authored his first signature October moment, with a riveting swing that reminded the 34,287 at Progressive Field and anyone watching around the globe of his defining trait: Power.

In the top of the fourth inning, Murakami stepped to the plate against another standout rookie, Parker Messick, who began his postseason debut by piling up six strikeouts over three scoreless innings. Then Miguel Vargas led off the frame with a scalded single to left, bringing Murakami up with a runner on and nobody out. While the rest of the lineup had floundered against Messick the first time through the order, Chicago’s two most dangerous bats were seeing the southpaw well. Vargas drew a walk in the first and followed with the single up the middle, which jumped off his bat at 111.5 mph.

This brought Murakami to the plate with one on and nobody out. Typically, his plate appearances unfold gradually. His propensity to whiff but not chase yields lengthy showdowns that often end in strikeouts or walks, rather than balls in play in early counts. Among qualified hitters, only Isaac Paredes (4.43) saw more pitches per plate appearance than Murakami (4.38) in the regular season. 

But in his second encounter with Messick, Murakami wasted no time. When Messick’s first-pitch sinker leaked into the inner half roughly belt-high, Murakami unleashed his thunderous, left-handed cut. The outcome was certain upon contact, and a little more than five seconds and 440 feet later, it was official: Home run. Coming off the bat at 112.2 mph, it was the hardest-hit ball of this postseason so far, and it made it 2-0 White Sox. 

“That's what playoff baseball is about,” manager Will Venable said afterward. “Your big dogs going out there and making big plays. And obviously, Mune is the guy in the middle of the lineup that's been doing it all year for us.”

Murakami paused to admire his work, tossed his bat to the side and turned to his jubilant teammates in the first-base dugout. This is nothing new to them at this point, but the up-close perspective of a picturesque Murakami swing never gets old.

“I think that might have been the coolest home run of the year,” said right-hander Grant Taylor, who put the finishing touches on Chicago’s Game 1 victory with some heroics of his own. “I mean, 440 down the line is obviously pretty sweet. But the pimp job was impeccable.”

As it turned out, one big swing was all Chicago needed in Game 1, thanks to an outstanding collective effort on the mound. Five pitchers combined to blank the Guardians, surrendering three hits and striking out a dozen. It was no secret that Venable was going to roll out a bullpen game in the series opener, but how it took shape was compelling. Rookie lefty Hagen Smith set the tone by retiring the first eight batters he faced, but his command unraveled after that, leading to Cleveland’s first chance to break through on offense. But after three consecutive Smith walks loaded the bases with two outs, lefty reliever Bryan Hudson coaxed a lineout from Chase DeLauter to end the threat.

The next inning, after Murakami had given Chicago the lead, the Guardians produced another two-out, bases-loaded situation. But again, they failed to capitalize, as Brayan Rocchio lined out to end the inning, much to the dismay of the crowd booming “RO-CCHI-O.” It was, unfortunately, a familiar sequence for the home fans; Cleveland hit .239 with runners in scoring position in the regular season, which ranked 26th in MLB and last among postseason teams. 

As it turned out, those two wasted chances were Cleveland’s best run-scoring opportunities. Once Taylor entered in the sixth, any semblance of momentum ceased. Chicago’s best bullpen arm was an obvious X-factor entering the series, especially after he tossed a career-high 54 pitches to record the final seven outs of Chicago’s Game 1 wild-card victory in Houston. When Venable summoned Taylor even earlier in the ALDS opener, it was difficult to envision him finishing the game; surely, a sixth pitcher would be needed to find the final few outs.

Not so. Taylor went to work, blitzing through Cleveland’s batters with a vicious blend of high-90s four-seamers and wicked breaking balls. He breezed through the sixth inning on 10 pitches. Ten more followed in the seventh, with a strikeout and double play negating a leadoff single. The Guardians made Taylor work a bit harder in the eighth inning; those three outs took 11 pitches. 

After his first three frames, it was unclear whether Taylor would finish the game. He had a three-run cushion to work with — the Sox added an insurance run in the seventh, when Kyle Teel scored from first on a squib double down the left-field line, combined with a botched catch at home by Austin Hedges — but left-hander Sean Newcomb was warming, with a trio of lefty batters scheduled to hit for Cleveland in the ninth.

But once Taylor came off the mound after the eighth, he got an inkling that his outing wasn’t over.

“I know that when I come in the dugout and Will doesn't tell me that I'm done immediately, that there's a possibility,” he said. “So I had my whole setup in the tunnel — I just kind of bee-lined for it. I wasn't going to let him tell me he changed his mind.”

Taylor returned to the mound, with Newcomb waiting in the bullpen just in case. 

He was not needed. Taylor’s final inning was his best. Angel Martinez struck out on three pitches, flailing at a curveball in the dirt. Lowe lasted four pitches but saw the same fate. Bazzana? You guessed it: Curveball. Dirt. Whiff. Game over.

Taylor covering more innings than any other Sox pitcher in Game 1 might not have been Plan A for Venable. But once the 24-year-old took the mound, it became clear pretty quickly that he was capable of something special.

“We're going into that one not expecting four innings from him,” Venable said. “But he wanted the ball, and he was efficient. So we went ahead and threw him out there.”

It was just the third postseason save of four or more innings this century, following Lance McCullers Jr. in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Madison Bumgarner in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. 

“He's a beast out there,” Venable said. “He wants the ball. His stuff is really good. I thought he actually got better as that outing went on. Incredible stuff from Grant.”

There’s another version of this White Sox season in which Taylor and Murakami still emerge as impact players and fan favorites, but on a last-place team stuck deep in a rebuild. But in the timeline we’re living in, their talents are on full display for a fearless ball club that has already collected three postseason wins — the same number the franchise achieved in the first 20 years after winning the 2005 World Series.

Snagging Game 1 on the road is a huge deal for Chicago on its own, but benefiting the White Sox even more is the extra off-day on the AL side of the bracket, as Game 2 of this series isn’t until Monday. That’ll give Taylor and the rest of Venable’s pitching staff a bonus day of rest before they attempt to keep the Guardians’ bats quiet for another nine innings.

Read full story at source