It's probably not great for Colson Montgomery that his performance has prompted two in-season interventions in his last three months of regular-season baseball.
Last August, members of the White Sox player development staff held an August Zoom meeting with Montgomery's camp to chart a course out of his season-long malaise. He finished the year with a flourish, both in September for Charlotte and October for the Glendale Desert Dogs, although not everybody was sold on material improvements.
Whether the spring training back spasms threw him off course or whether he never truly progressed out of his bad habits, this season has represented new lows. Because he's hitting .149/.223/.255 with a 41.7 percent strikeout rate, the White Sox are pulling him off Charlotte's roster and sending him to Arizona for some 1-on-1 work with hitting director Ryan Fuller.
There's been a strengthening undercurrent of denial over the last calendar year, and while it's understandable that Chris Getz and Co. wouldn't want to heighten public scrutiny of a mission-critical minor leaguer who is trying his best, it makes it difficult to discern what the White Sox are actually seeing. Even their actions haven't been particularly revealing, because they gave him an an inside track to the Opening Day shortstop job over the winter, and that seemed ill-advised from the jump.
Sending Montgomery to Arizona four weeks into Charlotte's season is the clearest sounding of alarms to date. Getz still can't quite put it into words -- and again, you probably shouldn't expect him to -- but when you read his answers, the optimism is no longer load-bearing. Every attempt at spinning it positively is negated by an urgency that wasn't there before.
For instance, Getz started framing it as though Montgomery is getting a head start on winter work, except he's way closer to last winter than next winter:
We are optimistic we are going to be able to make strides. Players often times, they wait until the offseason to make some of these adjustments. We figured why wait. Let’s attack this, and we look forward to seeing what we can do.
And when asked if whether this move signals greater than usual concern, Getz started downplaying it, and then aborted the mission:
I think it’s part of the development process. He’s 23 years old. In a way he’s still at the beginning of his career. We didn’t want to wait any longer. We felt like let’s go and attack this now. He’s open to it.
As for what Montgomery will be working on, James wrote up Fuller's diagnosis of the mechanical flaws involved in Sacramento over the weekend. The bigger question is whether something else is getting in the way of solving the problem. Getz ceded the possibility, but said, "To get into the psyche of a hitter is probably a place you don’t want to go at any stage." It's indeed fraught to put armchair psychoanalysis into print, but until Montgomery starts filling box scores again, the situation is such that everybody who cares is left to sit with their own theories.
Charlotte 6, Norfolk 1
- Josh Rojas made his first rehab appearance, going 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout while playing shortstop. He was healthy enough to be caught stealing.
- Tim Elko went 2-for-5 with a strikeout.
- Bryan Ramos was 2-for-4 with two doubles and a strikeout.
- Kyle Teel, just straight-up 2-for-4.
Notes:
*Wikelman González and Oscar Colás were both promoted to Charlotte, with Greg Jones going on the 7-day IL.
Pensacola 3, Birmingham 2
- Rikuu Nishida went 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
- William Bergolla was 1-for-3 with a double and an HBP.
- Wilfred Veras was 1-for-4.
- Jacob Gonzalez, also 1-for-4, with a strikeout.
- Ryan Galanie made his Double-A debut, going 0-for-2 with a walk.
- Hagen Smith with a line you don't often see: 4 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 6 BB, 7 K, 1 WP, 1 HBP, 48 of 90 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*Five of Smith's six walks came in the third and fourth innings, as well as the HBP.
Winston-Salem 5, Greensboro 0
- Sam Antonacci went 1-for-4 with a sac bunt and a strikeout. He was also caught stealing.
- Jeral Perez was 1-for-4 with a walk.
- Braden Montgomery made his High-A debut, singling, walking twice and striking out twice.
- Lucas Gordon: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 6 K, 2 HBP, 48 of 86 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*Jordan Sprinkle was also promoted from Kannapolis, freezing his Low-A line at .420/.547/.460 with 20 stolen bases over 16 games.
Kannapolis 4, Augusta 3
- Caleb Bonemer went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Abraham Nuñez hit his first stateside homer during a 1-for-4 night, striking out once.
- Javier Mogollón went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts and a CS.
- Lyle Miller-Green went 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Ryan Burrowes pinch-ran for him and scored the winning run on Calvin Harris' walk-off double.
Highlights:
*Here's the video recap including Nuñez's homer:
