Better late than never for Sox shortstop Montgomery, who makes home debut in loss
Maybe Chicago sports has found a new winning theme.
Rookie shortstop Colson Montgomery had a nice debut weekend with the White Sox in Colorado, while the Bears drafted tight end Colston Loveland in April.
Montgomery couldn't bring a winner back home Monday as the Sox lost to Toronto 8-4 at Rate Field. But he did make a nice diving stop of a ground ball to record an out in the fourth.
Over the weekend in Colorado, Montgomery went 5-for-10 with 2 walks and 2 RBI. He was 0-for-3 in his home debut Monday, but reached base twice on a walk and error, and scored a run.
“It's definitely a dream,” Montgomery said before the game. “(People) ask me questions about what it's like and everything like that. I tell them it's awesome to play the game in general at a professional level. But then once you play it at the big leagues, it's like, it's everything you imagine. It's everything you dream of.”
Montgomery seemed to be on a fast track to the majors after being chosen No. 22 overall in the 2021 MLB draft out of Southridge High School in Southern Indiana. A year ago, he was the White Sox's top-ranked prospect by MLB Pipeline. This year, he'd dropped to No. 5.
Instead of earning the starting shortstop job in the spring, Montgomery was sent back to Triple-A Charlotte and didn't do well there. It wasn't until the Sox sent him to Arizona for some development time in early June that he found hitting success.
“I would just say you never really know what's going to happen in this game,” he said. “Yeah, I had my sights set on breaking camp with the team. When it didn't happen, yeah, you kind of get bummed and you want to go play good right after that to kind of prove them wrong and everything — and I didn't do that.
“I take full accountability for that, but really all you can do is just keep showing up. I feel like that's one thing I have been doing is just coming to the park, trying to win each game.”
By the end of May, Montgomery was hitting .193 in Charlotte and had watched teammates like Chase Meidroth and Edgar Quero get called up to make MLB debuts.
What happened next might speak well for the future of the South Side rebuild. Montgomery went to Arizona with director of hitting Ryan Fuller. The White Sox hired Fuller away from the Orioles last November for a newly-created position overseeing hitting throughout the organization.
He and Montgomery got in the cage and tried to figure out what was wrong, with no timeline in mind.
“We tried different stances — me standing taller, me standing shorter,” Montgomery said. “Ultimately, it just came down to finding this routine that we fine-tuned, I guess you could say. I'm just trying to perfect that routine.
“(Fuller) definitely helped with just giving me a little sense of breath, fresh air. He's a great guy, too. It's more mental preparation than physical. This game, everybody talks about it physically, but we know how much it can really damage somebody mentally.”
At the end of June, Montgomery went 11-for-22 with 4 home runs over a five-game stretch. Sox general manager Chris Getz figured July 4 in Colorado was the right time to debut.
“I'm really proud of him,” Getz said. “We talked, it was months ago now. I gave him a call, just to do a little check-in and he was going through it. He was really struggling, and I said, 'Hey, you're going to figure this out. You just can't quit.' He goes, 'I'm not going to quit.' And he didn't.”
Montgomery talked about how his family members had to scramble to get to Denver by Friday. His mother and grandmother were in Cincinnati, on their way to Niagara Falls. His father and siblings were in Panama City Beach, Fla. Everyone found the nearest airport and got there in time.
Toronto took an 8-1 lead Monday with a 5-run sixth inning, knocking out Sox starter Sean Burke. Mike Tauchman singled in 2 runs in the seventh, and after a Lenyn Sosa RBI in the eighth, Montgomery got a chance to bat with runners on the corners, but struck out on a pitch that appeared to be outside.