Montgomery's unreal surge continues with 7th blast in 11 games

ANAHEIM -- What a ride it’s been for Colson Montgomery.

Montgomery (MLB Pipeline’s No. 4 White Sox prospect, No. 83 overall) homered yet again and drove in four runs in Sunday’s 8-5 loss against the Angels at Angel Stadium. After going homerless in his first 14 MLB games, Montgomery has taken the league by storm since the All-Star break, homering seven times in his past 11 games dating back to July 22.

Those seven home runs are tied for the MLB lead since the second half began and the most among all rookies, even ahead of the six homers by A’s star rookie Nick Kurtz. Montgomery continued his damage in the third inning with an RBI single, giving him 21 RBIs since the All-Star break, the most in the Majors.

“He’s been outstanding,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “He continues to take really good swings early in the count when he can do damage and later in the count, he’s still putting good swings on pitches. Colson is in a really good spot defensively, as well.”

Not coincidentally, this stretch began the day that Montgomery started using a torpedo bat against the Rays on July 22, when he crushed the first homer of his career. The White Sox rookie recently said that he’ll switch bats when he or the coaching staff feels a change is needed, but it’s impossible to not connect the dots.

“It was just a talk with all of our guys, with all of our hitting guys,” Montgomery said of the switch earlier this week. “We have a whole bunch of research where I was hitting the ball off the bat, and they just told me to try it.”

It truly has been a rollercoaster of a ride for Montgomery this season. After posting a .149/.223/.255 slash line over his first 23 games for Triple-A Charlotte to begin the season, Chicago sent Montgomery to Arizona in late April for a reset and to work on his offensive approach at the White Sox Camelback Ranch Complex.

After spending roughly two weeks in Arizona and playing in complex games, Montgomery returned to Charlotte on May 13. The reset paid major dividends. Upon returning from Arizona, Montgomery had a .270/.353/.574 slash line and eight home runs across 139 plate appearances before the White Sox called him up on July 4.

Montgomery, the No. 22 overall pick by the White Sox in the 2021 Draft, held his own his first few weeks in the Majors, posting a .688 OPS in 14 games. Since July 22, though, we’ve seen why Montgomery has been a highly-touted prospect, and that potential stardom has been on full display during this 11-game stretch where he’s gone yard seven times.

The last Sox rookie to hit that many home runs in a stretch like this was Luis Robert Jr., when he hit seven home runs in a 13-games stretch from Aug. 15-31, 2020.

“With his experience in the Minor Leagues, some of the struggles -- he obviously went to Arizona to work some stuff out -- and the adversity has been to his benefit since he’s come up,” Venable said. “You know you’re going to have challenges up here and adversity. I think his experience puts him in a good spot to deal with that stuff.”

Unsurprisingly, Montgomery’s torrid stretch has coincided with Chicago performing as one of the best teams in baseball. Unfortunately, the White Sox could not hold on to a 5-0 lead that they carried into the sixth inning on Sunday. After the Angels scored three runs in the sixth inning, they tied it in the seventh on a two-run double from Zach Neto.

Two innings later, Taylor Ward crushed a walk-off three-run homer, pulling off an unlikely comeback and preventing the White Sox from sweeping the three-game set in Anaheim.

“It was kind of a tale of two games. The first five innings, the offense did a great job and took quality at-bats. Big three-run home run from Colson. [Sean] Burke was great,” Venable said. “After that, I thought we kind of stalled out offensively and they had the momentum and we didn’t seem to be able to get any outs.”

Despite the sour ending in Anaheim, the White Sox still took the series and have won four of their five series since the All-Star break. Chicago’s 10-5 record is the third-best second-half record in baseball behind the 11-4 Brewers and Marlins.

“It was a good series. I hope we get out of here feeling good about the fact that we played a good series against a good team,” Venable said.