Last Night in Baseball: MLB’s Home Run Leader is an Enigmatic Rookie

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Murakami is MLB’s home run leader Is Munetaka Murakami a good defensive player? The White Sox moved the rookie third baseman and NPB import over to first base already, which is about all the answer you need to that question. Is he going to hit for a high average in MLB? That seems unlikely with the evidence we have so far, given he is leading the American League with 41 strikeouts and is currently batting .243, while his fellow lefties are chewing him up: he’s hitting just .161 with a .270 on-base percentage against southpaws. Can Murakami hit baseballs to the moon with regularity, though? Can he ever. And even against those pesky left-handed pitchers, too. Murakami didn’t even hit this one far, in terms of distance traveled in a straight line. The ball landed 382 feet away, and came off the bat at 95.8 mph. He sent this thing sky high, however, with a launch angle of 48 degrees — per MLB’s Sarah Langs, just eight home runs on record, since 2015 when StatCast began collecting the data, have had a higher launch angle. And hey, another nugget from Langs: Murakami has 12 extra-base hits, and they are all home runs. Nearly half of his total hits are long balls, as he has just 25 on the season. He strikes out constantly — just under one-third of his plate appearances have ended that way — hits some singles, walks nearly as often as he picks up a hit and also sends baseball into orbit the rest of the time. It’s a very strange profile so far, but it’s also working. Pitchers might adjust to him a bit, but his power is undeniable, in a way that makes leaving pitches he can hit in the zone a lot like playing with fire. Sure, you might get away with it — again, he strikes out more than he does any one thing — but he has also hit a whole bunch of baseballs comfortably further than 400 feet. When he gets a hold of one, he gets a hold of one. Right after Murakami gave the White Sox a lead over the Angels with a three-run homer, third baseman Miguel Vargas followed with a shot of his own to go back-to-back, capping off a seven-run seventh inning for Chicago. And good thing, too, because the Angels would end up scoring another two in the ninth — Los Angeles would fall short, 8-7. Dodgers walk off Marlins The other Los Angeles, though? The Dodgers came through. Before they could come from behind, though, they had to fall behind. The Marlins were happy to help with this early on, as they got on the board in the fourth and then scored three in the fifth — all on a 348-foot dinger DH Liam Hicks — to go up 4-2. Miami couldn’t score again from there, however, which gave Los Angeles all kinds of time to catch up. And they finally did in the bottom of the ninth. Center fielder Andy Pages walked to lead off the inning against new pitcher Pete Fairbanks, and then pinch-hitter Dalton Rushing also drew a free pass. Shortstop Miguel Rojas popped out on his bunt attempt, but that didn’t matter to Shohei Ohtani: the DH hit a ground-rule double down the right field line to score Pages and cut the lead to one. Fairbanks would then intentionally walk first baseman Freddie Freeman to load the bases and create multiple double play opportunities, and it worked out even better than that since catcher Will Smith struck out on a foul tip. The Dodgers’ lineup is deep, though, and next up was right fielder Kyle Tucker. He would deliver what Freeman wasn’t allowed to and Smith failed to. That’s Tucker’s first walk-off hit with his new team, and it made the Dodgers the second team in the league behind the Braves to reach the 20-win mark in 2026. Tucker has had a rough start to his career in Los Angeles — he has a .684 OPS and has been worth zero (0) wins above replacement to this point after signing a four-year, $240 million free agent deal this offseason. This W is in the bank, though, and maybe it will help get him going at the plate. Big Dumper is back back Losing to the Twins 11-4 isn’t great, Mariners fans will line up to tell you as much, but hey. There is some good news buried under the bad there. Seattle’s catcher, Cal Raleigh, made a whole lot of headlines in 2025 when he bashed 60 homers and set all kinds of records for switch-hitters and backstops in the process. His start to 2026, though, was abysmal. Now here’s that good news: Big Dumper is back, baby. That’s home run number seven on the year for Raleigh, which 1) has him on pace for 38, which would be the second-most he’s ever hit in a season after last summer’s hard-to-repeat outburst, and 2) the fifth that he’s hit in the last 10 games, a stretch in which he’s also batting .296/.367/.659. That’s a 1.026 OPS, and yes, it’s over 10 games, but recall the “abysmal” start: in that 20-game stretch, Raleigh batted .169/.253/.286. The Mariners are 14-16 and have plenty to figure out, but Seattle is at the point where they can scratch this particular off that list. Raleigh is back to mashing, and while he might never hit 60 homers again, well, that’s just what happens to almost everyone who has ever hit that level. Even Babe Ruth just pulled it off the one time, and he was literally Babe Ruth. If Raleigh is hitting 40, he’s still the best offensive catcher in the game, and the Mariners needed that guy back sooner than later. Cubs, Padres slug it out The pitchers were doomed in this one from the start. The Padres strung baserunners together in the first to drop three on the Cubs, but Chicago responded with five of their own over the next two innings, four of which came on one swing of the bat. The bat belonging to rookie slugger Moises Ballesteros, who drove this 86.1 mph curveball from Randy Vasquez 404 feet for a grand slam. Sorry, for a grand slam with a sick bat flip that followed it. The Padres would chip away at the lead, however, and wouldn’t take particularly long to do so. Right fielder Nick Castellanos hit one right back up the middle in the fifth to score third baseman Manny Machado and first baseman Ty France, putting San Diego ahead again, 6-5. In the seventh, France would come up with two on, and he hit a triple into the corner in left, scoring both runners and pushing San Diego’s lead to 8-5. France, at this point, was actually playing third base — Machado had exited with a leg injury, so France shifted across the diamond and Gavin Sheets came off the bench to play first. Sheets made his presence felt an inning later with a two-out dinger, his fourth home run of the year. This little bit of insurance might have seemed unnecessary, since closer Mason Miller was coming in for the save and had recently set the franchise record scoreless streak. But the Cubs managed to put two on the board in the ninth, ending Miller’s streak at 34.2 innings and scoring the first runs off of him that anyone has managed since August of last year, shortly after the Padres traded for the flamethrowing reliever. The Padres held on for the W, however, and remained half-a-game behind the Dodgers in the NL West. The Cubs, coming off a 10-game winning streak, have now dropped three in a row. Cardinals come from behind to win It didn’t look like the Cardinals were going to be in this one for a while there, as the Pirates started out the game by sitting down the first 18 batters St. Louis sent to the plate, and scored a pair of runs early to go up (and stay up) 2-0 for the first eight innings. In the top of the ninth, though, against new pitcher Dennis Santana, the Cards woke up. Catcher Pedro Pages hit his third homer of the year to snap the shutout, and then second baseman and 23-year-old rookie JJ Wetherholt made it back-to-back jacks with his sixth long ball of ‘26. Things did not get better for Santana after these shots. DH Ivan Herrera walked, then first baseman Alec Burleson singled to put him in scoring position with just one out. Left fielder Jose Fermin, who had entered as a pinch-hitter earlier, then doubled home both runners to give the Cardinals their first lead of the night. George Soriano would come on to close things out for St. Louis in the bottom of the frame, and he retired three of the four batters he faced, giving up a harmless single. That’s a big win for the Cardinals, who are slowly climbing up the NL Central — they are now just half-a-game behind Pittsburgh for third — despite being the one team in the division that’s been outscored on the season. Even more reason to bank wins whenever possible. No seriously, how Also from the Cardinals-Pirates’ tilt: a ground ball that defied logic and maybe also physics. That or it hit a couple of patches of ground where the dirt wasn’t smoothed out anymore. Take your pick. Judge goes yard, Yankees win Very briefly, Yankees’ right fielder Aaron Judge was tied for the MLB lead in home runs. Murakami changed that with his own long ball, but don’t discount the majesty of this 414-foot shot from Judge. It came off the bat at 113 mph and deserves some recognition. Plus, it served as the Yankees’ third run of the game — it followed a dinger from first baseman Ben Rice, who even more briefly was tied with Judge for New York’s home run lead — in a game that the Bombers ended up winning 4-2. A homer is good on its own, but a homer with meaning? That’s the stuff. The Yankees downed the Rangers, pushing Texas under .500 again, while New York remained atop the AL East at 19-10. A pretty good start from a team that had a five-game losing streak, no? Messick thrives again, but Rays win Guardians’ rookie starter Parker Messick nearly threw a no-hitter earlier this month, and on Monday night he was once again dominant, this time against the Rays. While he pitched just 5.2 innings this time, he also struck out nine while limiting Tampa Bay to one run and three hits. Messick had a little help from his defense, naturally — check this barehanded grab by shortstop Brayan Rocchio. But it wasn’t just Cleveland’s D that made notable plays: check out Rays’ second baseman Ben Williamson and the extension he had on this diving grab, in which he crossed to the other side of second base to take away what should have been a hit to no man’s land. Play like this helped keep the game close, and in the eighth, the Rays’ offense got going just enough. First baseman Jonathan Aranda hit a solo homer, his seventh long ball of the year, to tie the game 2-2. And then third baseman Junior Caminero singled, was replaced by pinch-runner Richie Palacios — who stole second to get into scoring position — and was singled in to give Tampa Bay its first lead, by right fielder Ryan Vilade. A difficult loss for the Guardians, who are scrapping atop the AL Central with the Tigers already, but a big dub for the Rays given the early success of the aforementioned Yankees: Tampa Bay is 17-11 and in second place in the AL East. The Red Sox have won three in a row The Red Sox front office and ownership might be incoherent and obsessed with creating drama, but hey, the roster itself is doing well the last few days. It’s not quite time for Tampa Bay or New York to worry about a resurgence in Boston, but the Sox have won three in a row to improve to 12-17 on the season and push their run differential to -6: that’s a three-game change of +23. And hey, the second two of those games even happened under new interim manager Chad Tracy. Monday’s W was highlighted by a standout performance from free-agent acquisition, starting pitcher Ranger Suarez. The lefty went eight innings against the Blue Jays’ own major offseason rotation pickup, Dylan Cease, and things went much better for the former: he struck out 10 against one walk while allowing a single hit and no runs, while Cease was lifted after 5.2 after giving up four runs on seven hits and three walks. Boston would complete the shutout against the defending AL champs, who are scuffling just half-a-game less than the Sox are to start 2026. The Red Sox have a lot more work to do — this is just three games — but Boston has to start somewhere, and the last three days have been as good of a place as any.