As deep in the weeds as James' conversations with Ryan Fuller get, there is still some material that doesn't find its way into the final story.
For instance, they talked about Braden Montgomery and George Wolkow, who are off to disparate starts in the Kannapolis outfield, and what Fuller said about each is worth keeping in the back pocket.
Regarding Montgomery, who is hitting .313/.378/.469 over his first eight professional games:
"Braden is a workhorse and he’s so talented. Coming to performance camp at the end of January he was obviously very green. He hadn’t played in a long period of time, hadn’t seen a game. So there was a lot of bat path work. His direction was very side-to-side, never really through the middle of the field on plane. To his credit and all the coaches’ [credit] they were just making sure he really refined that. Where he is today, he has made huge strides. Obviously you see the power, you see the ability to move the bat really fast through the zone. It’s just making sure all that force is used with really good direction, so where they’re throwing it over the heart of the plate, he’s able to send it through both gaps. On both sides of the plate he’s going to be a really special hitter. That guy loves to hit. He comes from Texas A&M, he said his hitting coach would often say ‘Hitters who hit often, hit often’ so he loves to hit and he’s in the cage all the time. He was on Trajekt every single day it was available and he’s going to grind it out and figure it out because he’s so special and so talented.”
And George Wolkow, who is batting .138/.212/.172 over his first 29 plate appearances:
“He’s 19. Do you want to K at 40 percent, do you want to miss that much? Absolutely not. The great part about George is you can talk man-to-man with him. When we had his player plan conversation, we showed him his contact rate on sliders and sweepers. It was astoundingly low. [The message] was ‘This is bad. This is not going to be sustainable to get you to the place we want to go. But we get to train the crap out of it.’ We talk about exposure therapy: the more you see, the more you’re exposed to these shapes, the better you’re going to be, the better decisions you’re going to make. Because obviously a 19-year-old is used to putting a machine on, a fastball right down the middle. They’re probably seeing a fastball 95 percent of the time. You’re the flip side. You’re the big hulking dude who comes in and they’re not going to throw you fastballs right down the middle. You’re probably going to get a lot more changeups, a lot more breaking balls. That’s where we need to spend our time and energy, and helping him understand we’re not trying to make you a contact, slap guy. You have special skills that we want to be special throughout your entire career. How do we just make sure that you’re making contact when you should, when they throw it in the zone. When you do that, it’s loud, it’s special contact.”
The first Farm Fortnight of the season will hit the site on Tuesday to go into greater detail about how they and the other White Sox prospects of note have fared over the first two (or three) series of the season.
Jacksonville 4, Charlotte 3
- Colson Montgomery homered, singled and struck out twice.
- Edgar Quero was 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Kyle Teel, 1-for-3 with a walk.
- Owen White: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 2 K
- Eric Adler was tagged with the blown save: 0.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 13 of 20 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*Montgomery's second homer of the season was measured at just 95.7 mph and 330 feet, but it looked more certain than that in the video:
Birmingham 14, Chattanooga 2
- William Bergolla went 4-for-5 with two doubles and a walk.
- Jacob Gonzalez went 3-for-5 with a double and an HBP.
- DJ Gladney, 1-for-5 with a walk and two strikeouts.
- Wilfred Veras made his 1-for-6 day count with his first homer. He also struck out.
- Rikuu Nishida went 2-for-5 with a triple and a strikeout.
- Riley Gowens: 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 56 of 84 pitches for strikes.
Winston-Salem 10, Greensboro 4
- Sam Antonacci went 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Jackson Appel, 0-for-3 with two walks.
- Jeral Perez was 1-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout.
- Samuel Zavala, 1-for-4 with a sac fly and two strikeouts.
Kannapolis 8, Lynchburg 7
- Javier Mogollón went 3-for-4 with a double and a walk, and 2-for-3 on the basepaths, with the thwarted attempt at home.
- Caleb Bonemer was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer, a sac fly and a strikeout.
- Braden Montgomery was 2-for-4 with a sac fly.
- George Wolkow, 0-for-5.
- Nick McLain was 2-for-3 with a walk.
- Ronny Hernandez went 1-for-4 with a double and a strikeout.
- Lyle Miller-Green, 0-for-4 with a K.
- Ryan Burrowes, 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts.
Highlights:
*Bonemer's first professional homer:
