The White Sox didn't need much time to make a statement in Tampa. Miguel Vargas got things going with two outs in the first inning, launching a 433-foot solo shot that left the yard at 107.8 mph off the bat. It was the kind of no-doubt blast that sets the tone for an entire night.
Vargas rounds the bases after his first-inning solo homer, with the exit velocity and distance flashing on the broadcast graphic.
Andrew Benintendi followed it up by leading off the second inning with a solo homer of his own, and White Sox fans on the internet couldn't resist the deadpan reaction. "Beni got every single ounce of that baseball," wrote whitesoxdave, and the clip backs up the sarcasm-laced praise.
Benintendi circles the bases on his leadoff homer as the scoreboard shows the White Sox up early.
By the third inning, Munetaka Murakami turned a one-run game into a laugher with a two-run shot that put Chicago up 4-0. The rookie's power has been the story of the White Sox season, and this one kept the highlight reel rolling.
Murakami's two-run homer clears the fence as the scoreboard flips to White Sox 4, Rays 0.
Erick Fedde kept the Rays off balance for five innings, allowing just one run before the bullpen took over, and Colson Montgomery added a fourth homer later in the game — a 425-foot shot that clanked off the catwalk in right field, per the Chicago Sun-Times. All told it was Chicago's four-homer, 6-1 win, and it marked the fifth time this season that Montgomery, Murakami and Vargas have all gone deep in the same game, tying an MLB and franchise record last matched by the 2004 Joe Crede-Paul Konerko-Jose Valentin trio.
The win pushed the White Sox to 58-51 and gave them a three-game lead in the AL Central after Cleveland's loss, putting Chicago seven games over.500 — a season high. For a franchise that's spent years rebuilding, a rookie masher like Murakami chasing the Japanese rookie home run record while veterans like Benintendi and Vargas provide steady pop is exactly the formula they were hoping to stumble into. The Rays, meanwhile, just watched their pitching staff get torched in a building they usually control.