Murakami homers for 5th straight game as Montgomery, Vargas keep up White Sox’ siege in loss

PHOENIX —Make it five in a row for raking White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami, who homered in yet another game Wednesday as his teammates Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas continued their own stunning long-ball streaks against the Diamondbacks.

It still wasn’t enough as Arizona launched their own home run barrage against Sox starter Anthony Kay, who surrendered eight runs in an 11-7 loss.

But Murakami’s latest moonshot was his longest yet, a 451-foot, two-run rainbow to left field in the seventh inning off D-backs reliever Ryan Thompson for his 10th of the season, passing Aaron Judge for the second-most in Major League Baseball.

The rookie’s five-game homer streak has also tied the franchise record previously matched by Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Carlos Lee, Frank Thomas, Ron Kittle and Greg Luzinski.

“I’m really happy that I have the record,” Murakami said via interpreter Kenzo Yagi. “At any plate appearance, I stay the same. I’m very focused on each and every at-bat.”

Vargas’ third-inning blast off D-backs starter Eduardo Rodriguez was his third in as many games, sailing 428 feet with an exit velocity of 109 mph.

“It’s just baseball. Sometimes you are hitting the ball good and you don’t get any results. Sometimes you just get lucky,” Vargas said. “Right now, I think we got a good spot. We have a really quality at-bats as a team. We trust each other.”

And there was no doubt about Montgomery’s fourth dinger in four games, either, at nearly 106 mph off the bat and 423 feet into the right-field stands at Chase Field.

“They just continue to fight. It’s one guy after the other, putting good swings together,” manager Will Venable said.

The Sox have racked up 15 home runs in their last five games, with Vargas, Montgomery and Murakami accounting for 12 of them at the heart of the order.

“We’re definitely influencing each other and happy the three of us hit, and all of the lineup getting a lot of runs in is obviously a good thing,” Murakami said. “Other than that, I’m really disappointed that we lost today. We’ve just got to get out there tomorrow and really win the series.”