Takeaways as the Chicago White Sox suffer an excruciating 9-7 loss while being swept by the Milwaukee Brewers
· Yahoo Sports
MILWAUKEE — There is stumbling out of the gate. And then there are the three games the Chicago White Sox lost to begin the 2026 season against the Milwaukee Brewers.
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The series came to an excruciating end Sunday with the Sox blowing a five-run lead and falling 9-7 in front of 32,737 at American Family Field.
Christian Yelich capped Milwaukee’s comeback with a go-ahead, pinch-hit, three-run home run against closer Seranthony Domínguez with two outs in the eighth inning. The Sox surrendered six runs in the eighth on the way to being swept.
“It was a really bad moment for our team, for me,” said Domínguez, who allowed two runs on two hits in one-third of an inning. “I was so close to getting out of that inning and just made a big mistake right down the middle.”
After losing the first two games by a combined 20-3, the Sox couldn’t have asked for a better start Sunday when Colson Montgomery hit a grand slam in the first inning. Munetaka Murakami hit a solo home run in the second inning — his third home run in three games — and Everson Pereira homered in the third as the Sox built a 7-2 lead.
And then came the eighth-inning meltdown. The Sox entered the inning ahead 7-3. The Brewers loaded the bases with one out for Brice Turang, who drove in a run with a single against Chris Murphy to make it 7-4.
Domínguez entered with the bases still loaded. He got William Contreras to pop out to third baseman Miguel Vargas, but Luis Rengifo followed with a two-run single, which cut the Sox lead to 7-6.
Yelich followed with the home run on a 2-2 splitter to put the Brewers ahead. Tristan Peters singled leading off the ninth, but Trevor Megill retired the next three batters as the Sox fell to 0-3.
“Certainly some things that we have to work on,” manager Will Venable said. “We know that coming in. Some of the things that we emphasized in spring training that we got exposed with, to be honest, this series.
“But it was a good, hard-fought game today that didn’t go our way. There’s good learning experiences, and we got to evaluate some individual things here, get better at them and move forward.”
Here are three takeaways from the season-opening series.
1 Murakami was one of the few bright spots.Murakami collected his first major-league hit in the ninth inning on opening day, a home run to right field.
He homered again Saturday. And Sunday, his high fly ball in the second inning tipped off the glove of leaping right fielder Sal Frelick and went over the wall for his third home run in three games.
Murakami joined Colorado’s Trevor Story (four in 2016), Seattle’s Kyle Lewis (three in 2019) and Cleveland’s Chase DeLauter (three in 2026 games entering Sunday) as the only players to homer in three-plus straight games to start their major-league career.
Murakami went 3-for-9 with four walks in the three games.
“There’s still a long way to go and a lot of ways to improve,” Murakami said through an interpreter on Sunday. “So that is what I’ll keep on doing in the upcoming days.”
2. What could go wrong, did go wrong for the Sox.The Sox struck out 20 times and walked 10 batters in Thursday’s 14-2 loss.
Saturday, they couldn’t make the defensive plays while falling 6-1.
Left fielder Andrew Benintendi explained a sequence from the first inning Saturday, when a fly ball hit near the wall by Turang resulted in a double.
“I was going back trying to time up my jump, but I thought by the time I jumped, I don’t think I was going to be able to get it,” Benintendi said Sunday morning. “At that point, I’m trying to keep it to a double and not let it ricochet off the fence into a triple.”
Milwaukee ran all over the Sox on Saturday, stealing seven bases.
Sunday saw the Sox squander a grand slam by Montgomery and a big lead.
“It’s a tough series,” Venable said Sunday. “Some good stuff today. Obviously, we weren’t able to finish it off, but we’ll move on and be ready for tomorrow (in Miami).”
3. An injury cut short Andrew Vaughn’s first series against his former team.The Sox selected first baseman Andrew Vaughn with the No. 3 pick in the 2019 draft. He made his major-league debut with the club in 2021.
Vaughn spent portions of five seasons with the Sox before being traded to the Brewers last June. He faced his former team for the first time in a regular-season game on Thursday, going 1-for-4 with an RBI single during Milwaukee’s 14-2 win.
It was a short-lived reunion weekend for Vaughn, who went on the 10-day injured list ahead of Saturday’s game with a left hamate fracture.
Before Thursday’s game, Vaughn reflected on his time with the Sox. He soaked in whatever he could from Sox veterans, including first baseman José Abreu.
“He always said the right things at the right time,” Vaughn said. “(My) first spring training (in 2020), with (catcher) James McCann, McCann was awesome. We had so many guys, if you looked back at that team, we had how many guys with 10 years service time — (pitchers) Lance Lynn, (Dallas) Keuchel, Joe Kelly, (Kendall) Graveman. You name it, we had those guys. Just learning from them I felt like it helped me a lot.”
Vaughn slashed .248/.303/.407 with 77 home runs and 293 RBIs in 610 games while with the Sox from 2021-25. After struggling to begin the 2025 season, Vaughn was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte on May 23 and traded to the Brewers on June 13 for pitcher Aaron Civale.
“I feel like personal performance was up and down,” Vaughn said. “I wanted to be more consistent for sure. Kind of ended the way I didn’t want it to end, obviously. But just have to keep moving forward.”