Colson Montgomery doubled home a run in the first inning Friday and went 2-for-4 with two RBI as the White Sox opened their series against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.
The 24-year-old shortstop also homered Saturday, then struck out with the bases loaded in the 11th inning of a walk-off loss. It was the kind of two-day stretch that has defined Montgomery’s hot-and-cold start to his sophomore campaign: loud contact one night, frustration the next.
White Sox manager Will Venable saw enough in the buildup to believe a big game was coming. “Man, this guy’s going to have a great day today,” Venable said, and he pointed to the work Montgomery has put in as the reason for the optimism. “Whether it materializes in the game or not, I think just the way that he’s working has been great,” Venable said. “He’s somebody that puts so much work into it.”
That confidence matters because Montgomery, the White Sox’s 2021 first-round draft pick from Holland, Indiana, is still trying to settle in as the club’s shortstop of the future. He was hitting.194/.310/.417 with 27 strikeouts, 14 hits and eight walks, a line that shows the talent and the inconsistency in the same breath.
The White Sox have lived with both sides of that equation before. Montgomery was sent to the organization’s Arizona training complex last year to rediscover his swing after struggling so badly that the club needed to slow everything down. Ryan Fuller oversaw that 2025 desert sabbatical, and Montgomery eventually returned in time for a July 4 debut last year before catching fire with 21 second-half home runs and an.840 OPS.
Fuller said Montgomery’s response this season has been encouraging because he has not let the slow start swallow him. “He’s done a great job understanding, ‘Yeah, it’s early, I need to make adjustments. There have been really good spurts where I am swinging the bat well and I am able to affect the team’s chances of winning.’ But to his credit, has not hit the panic button,” Fuller said. He added: “Same guy every day, ready to work, and when it is tougher, he wants to work even harder.”
Montgomery said he tries to keep the process simple. “I always tell myself I’m one swing away, one at-bat away, one game away,” he said. “I feel like that keeps me going in a good positive mindset and kind of ready for the next pitch and the next at-bat or whatever, and not really worried about the past or whatever happened the day before.”
The White Sox were at the bottom of the majors in OPS before an offensive awakening in California, and Montgomery has been part of that change even while the results swing wildly from inning to inning. That is the job now: turn flashes into something steadier, because the club does not need another reminder that the talent is real — it needs it more often.