Colson Montgomery homered again Sunday, and the timing could not be better for a White Sox team that keeps surprising people. His team-leading 24th home run came off Toronto’s Trey Yesavage in the sixth inning of a 3-0 win, and Chicago heads to Arlington sitting one game up on the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central.
The White Sox open a three-game set against the AL West-leading Texas Rangers on Monday at Globe Life Field. Chicago arrives at 52-46, winners of five of their last six, in the middle of a turnaround few outside the clubhouse saw coming.
The Season So Far
Montgomery has become the offensive centerpiece. His 24 home runs pace the club, and he’s added 17 doubles and 33 walks while slugging .477. The batting average sits at .224, a number that tells the story of a hitter who runs hot and cold rather than steady.
That streakiness kept him out of the All-Star Game. He piled up 121 strikeouts before the break, the second-most among shortstops and inside the top six leaguewide, which cut against an otherwise strong power profile. Manager Venable summed up the puzzle by admitting he’s “not sure how to characterize where Colson’s at,” pointing to games where Montgomery looks lost in one at-bat and drives in the winning run the next.
The road here wasn’t smooth. A rough start at Triple-A Charlotte last year sent him back to the Sox’s Arizona complex to reset. Since that reset, he’s turned into one of the more productive shortstops in the game at the plate while playing better defense than the front office expected when it took him 22nd overall in the 2021 draft out of Southridge High School in Indiana.
The Mindset Fueling the Run
Ask Montgomery to explain the White Sox turnaround and he keeps it simple. He described the team’s identity in a single word after Sunday’s win: “Relentlessness.” He credits a young, inexperienced roster that has leaned on each other rather than pressing.
Texas presents a real test. The Rangers lead their division and can put up runs in a hurry, and Globe Life Field is a tough place to open a road trip. Chicago has been the steadier club lately, and this series measures whether that form holds against one of the better lineups in the league. Montgomery’s bat will have a lot to say about the answer.
