The White Sox finished the regular season with the fifth most strikeouts in baseball; a total of 1,494 in 2026. This is not overly surprising, as their regular line-up has both Munetaka Murakami and Colson Motgomery, who have two of the highest strikeout rates in their major leagues.
Montgomery made the news by striking out 227 times, breaking MLB's former single-season record of 223, which stood from 2009 until now. And he's barely the worst strikeout hitter on the team; Murakami's K-rate is fractionally better, at 35.4% compared to Montgomery's 35.6%. Murakami only played 127 games this year due to injury, but he's still struck out 196 times, third most in the American League.
Colson Montgomery sets the single-season strikeout record. pic.twitter.com/OkoCT9UHPv
— Underdog MLB (@UnderdogMLB) September 26, 2026
The White Sox struck out 290 times between March and April, and 273 times in August, making those their worst months of the season for strikeouts. They went 14-17 in March and April, and 14-14 in August. They allowed 153 runs in 31 games between March/April, while scoring 129. In August they allowed 140 while scoring 133. Those are the only months of the season where they allowed more runs than they scored.
White Sox offense has mostly carried them in 2026, but still has its flaws
Overall, the Sox have been a good run-scoring team, but they've blown 38 leads and been shut-out 11 times according to Baseball Reference. While most of their problems have come from pitching, there have been more than a few time when they had a game within reach that was blown by an offense that couldn't score.
The Sox have a good balance of on-base/contact hitters and power-hitters. But when their two key power bats have collectively struck out over 400 times, it becomes much harder to get runs. Looking at Baseball Reference's Clutch stats, the team's strikeout rate is just under 25% with two outs and runners in scoring position, and their overall K% with RISP is 24.4%. The MLB-wide K% is about 23%.
Strikeouts have become more tolerated in recent years, and MLB strikeout rates have been trending upwards. But the Sox have two of the most strikeout-prone hitters in baseball on their line-up, and the addition of Brenton Doyle (with a near 33% K-rate) doesn't help.
The Sox aren't bad at getting on base; their .320 OBP ranked 9th in baseball. But there's more scoring runs than either getting on-base or hitting home runs, and that includes putting the ball in play with runners on base (avoiding the "three true outcome" approach).
The Sox are coming off several seasons of 90-100 losses, where they were far from a contending team. They have not had a winning season since 2021, up until this year, which they finished with an 84-78 record. Coming off their historically bad 2024 season, having any good player seemed like an improvement. Even earlier this year, it was hard to mind their approach. But now they've reached the postseason, and they'll hopefully continue to be contenders for the next several seasons. That comes with higher expectations.
The White Sox were ranked first in their division for the most of the year, but managed to finish just below the Guardians. It's made even worse because several of the games they lost were easy to win--like when they got shut-out by the Houston Astros on September 2nd, facing a starting pitcher with a 3.25 ERA (solid, but not untouchable).
Maybe the answer is to not start Colson Montgomery every game until he fixes some of his swing-and-miss tendencies. They could maybe even hold off extending Murakami until they see more of him, although I would be less bullish on that idea. I'm not a fan of platoons or pinch-hitting, and there's no denying that Murakami is an All-star caliber player, or that Montgomery has a high ceiling. But it seems like a risky gamble to consistently start two players with such glaring contact issues.
The Sox need to refine all aspects of their game to stay competitive. They already have a talented offense, but they need to perform better in clutch, and they can't let their bats run cold. That starts with making more regular contact and avoiding strikeouts.
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