White Sox slugger Colson Montgomery finding his swing again out west

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — This isn’t the first time Colson Montgomery has gone west in search of consistency in his swing.

He found it in the desert last season, when Montgomery’s status as the White Sox’ shortstop of the future briefly seemed to be in jeopardy amid a flailing start at Triple-A.

The 24-year-old found it in West Sacramento during the Sox’ series opener against the Athletics, socking a double and a screaming infield single on a 2-4 night with two RBI. And he followed up with a laser of a home run to kickstart the Sox’ offense on Saturday.

Now he’s trying to find a way to keep that production coming steadily after an uneven start to the 6-3 slugger’s sophomore campaign at the heart of a lineup that desperately needs his pop.

“In his pregame work, sometimes you watch him, and I'm like, ‘Man, this guy's going to have a great day today,’” manager Will Venable said. “Whether it materializes in the game or not, I think just the way that he's working has been great. He's somebody that puts so much work into it. That consistency of being himself and the best version of himself more consistently is right around the corner.”

Montgomery entered play Saturday .191/.295/.382, with twice as many strikeouts (26) as hits (13) to go with seven walks. Not a pretty line, but there are plenty worse on a Sox roster that was at the bottom of the MLB barrel in OPS before their offensive awakening this weekend in California.

For his part, the zen Montgomery has kept an even keel.

“I always tell myself I’m one swing away, one at-bat away, one game away,” Montgomery said after a two-hit afternoon last weekend in Kansas City. “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.”

Then it’s safe to say he’s not worried about where he was this time last year, when Montgomery was scrambling so badly that Sox brass yanked him from Charlotte’s lineup and sent him to the organization’s Arizona training complex to rediscover the swing that made the Holland, Indiana, native their 2021 first-round draft pick.

The drastic measure worked, with Montgomery rebounding in time for a July 4 debut and blasting 21 second-half homers with an .840 OPS.

“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,” said Sox hitting director Ryan Fuller, who oversaw Montgomery’s 2025 desert sabbatical. “Same guy every day, ready to work, and when it is tougher, he wants to work even harder.

“We think about last year, too, where he was in April and May and you had a year to build and by the time it was July, August, September, that’s when you want to be playing your best baseball,” Fuller said while the Sox were getting swept at home by Tampa Bay. “Like all these guys, they’re struggling right now. We’re going to get it right, we’re going to make adjustments. He’s confident in the work we’re going to put in and it’s going to start to show up.”

Maybe it’ll start showing up elsewhere in a young lineup where 10 players have less than two years of experience apiece.

“They’re going through struggle, a lot of these guys, for the first time at the big-league level. That is totally normal,” Fuller said. “You look at any team over the course of 162, there’s going to be 20 or 30 games that everyone kind of goes cold at once and it’s a tough spell. We can reframe this as we’re getting ours out of the way in April, that’s going to set us up for really good lessons when we get into June, July, August, when it’s hotter, those dog days of summer.”