One year to the day after being told he was getting sent to Arizona to work on his offensive approach, Colson Montgomery stepped to the plate Wednesday with a chance to win the game and complete a three-game sweep of the Angels for the Chicago White Sox.
Montgomery wasted little time doing just that, lining the first pitch he saw from Angels reliever Drew Pomeranz into center field for the first walk-off hit of his MLB career.
It seemed fitting that the White Sox had just a 14.8% chance to win while down to their final out in the ninth inning before Sam Antonacci ripped a game-tying triple down the right-field line to knot the score at two and flip the script.
Flipping the script is exactly what Montgomery, whom many had labeled a bust after a slow start at Triple-A last season, has done since joining the White Sox. In the year since returning from Camelback Ranch after working one-on-one with White Sox hitting director Ryan Fuller, Montgomery has turned into one of baseball’s most dangerous offensive weapons.
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Through 31 games, his 1.2 WAR is the fifth-highest among MLB shortstops. This comes after posting a 3.3 WAR in just 71 games last season.
Since July 22 of last season, Montgomery has clubbed 29 home runs, tied with Cal Raleigh for the most in the MLB. Over that span, he has also hit more home runs than Aaron Judge (28), Junior Caminero (28), and Shohei Ohtani (26) despite having fewer plate appearances than each of them. His 70 RBIs since July 22nd are also tied for the second most in the majors.
He is currently riding a career-best 13-game on-base streak. During that stretch, the former first-round pick is slashing .291/.339/.770 with a 1.109 OPS, along with five home runs and 12 RBIs.
While Montgomery has struggled to consistently put balls in play, highlighted by a lofty 29% strikeout rate, when he does make hard contact, he is doing damage. His 15% barrel rate ranks near the top of the league, while his .442 expected slugging percentage sits comfortably in the upper half of MLB hitters.
Despite mostly being feast or famine at the plate, the 24-year-old has also emerged as one of the White Sox primary run producers, with his eight home runs and 21 RBIs this season are each tied for seventh in the American League.
Montgomery’s recent power surge has only added to the buzz surrounding a young White Sox team that has won seven of its last 10 games and sits just 1.5 games out of first place in the AL Central despite still being three games under .500.
“Right now, we are just laying a brick every single day and building every single day, and just playing really good ball,” Montgomery told MLB.com. “Keep feeding off this excitement.”
But Montgomery is not just getting it done on the offensive side; he has also showcased exceptional range at shortstop. Montgomery has committed just one error at shortstop this season while ranking third among American League shortstops with a .989 fielding percentage. He also has four Outs Above Average this season, three at shortstop (fourth most in the MLB) and one at third base, a mark that ranks in the top 2% of MLB defenders.
That range was on full display on Wednesday, when he made a backhanded stop on his knee to initiate a critical 6-4-3 double play in the top of the ninth inning.
Many have speculated that Montgomery will eventually be shuffled to third base to make room for presumed No. 1 overall pick Roch Cholowsky. He has already shown he is more than capable of handling the hot corner, logging 129 innings there with just two errors early in his MLB career.
But Montgomery’s recent work with the glove at short raises the question if the White Sox should instead consider a position switch for Cholowsky or any of the organization’s other prospective shortstops to another position?
The organization still has plenty of time before any decisions need to be made, but if Montgomery continues this upward trajectory, it will be hard to keep him out of the conversation as one of the top shortstops in baseball.
