Munetaka Murakami momentarily shared the team lead in home runs by hitting his 30th in the first inning against the Minnesota Twins. His two-run shot to left field tied him with Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery. Shortly after, Montgomery topped the leaderboard with his 31st home run, also in the first inning.

Despite these early scores, the Sox couldn’t hold onto their lead. They lost 6-4 to the Twins in front of 27,749 at Rate Field. Murakami, speaking through an interpreter, expressed his disappointment, saying, “Obviously I’m happy about getting 30, but we lost the game. We hope to win tomorrow.”

In the fifth inning, Ryan Jeffers’ three-run homer gave the Twins the lead. “The team gives you a 3-0 lead early on, you want to protect that,” said Sox pitcher Anthony Kay. “Obviously I didn’t do my job tonight and need to work on that.” Kay felt good initially, but began to struggle as the game progressed, giving up crucial hits.

The first-place White Sox (74-68) maintain a 2½-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians (72-71) in the AL Central, as the Guardians lost 6-0 to the Detroit Tigers. The Twins are six games behind in third.

The opening homers by Murakami and Montgomery put the Sox ahead 3-0. Murakami celebrated with his teammates, noting strong team contributions, “Having Colson and Vargas is a strong point, but the whole team is contributing, making us stronger.”

Murakami, Vargas, and Montgomery are the first Sox trio to hit 30 or more home runs in a season since 2008.

Murakami also joined an elite group of Sox rookies who achieved 30-plus homers in a season, including Eloy Jiménez, José Abreu, and Ron Kittle.

In the fourth inning, the Twins started making headway. A combination of plays brought their score to 3-2. This set up Jeffers for his pivotal homer in the fifth, leaving the Sox behind 5-3. Kay’s performance tallied five runs on six hits in just over four innings.

“Really sharp at first then got into trouble,” said manager Will Venable, referring to Kay’s performance.

Vargas reduced the deficit with an RBI single in the fifth, but the Twins pushed the lead to 6-4 in the seventh with a Kaelen Culpepper double.

The Sox had chances in both the seventh and eighth innings to even the score. Kyle Teel and Sam Antonacci missed key opportunities in the seventh, and Colson Montgomery failed to capitalize in the eighth.

“Nice first inning with the homers, but we didn’t manage to capitalize afterward,” Venable concluded.