The night-and-day nature of Colson Montgomery's results since his two-week Arizona sabbatical is such that director of hitting Ryan Fuller could have revealed that he did the hitting coach equivalent of giving the former first round pick a placebo pill, and we'd be obligated to concede the wisdom present.
Montgomery hit .149/.223/.255 while striking out at least once in each of the 23 games he appeared in prior to his hitting intervention, with a 41.7 percent strikeout rate. And thanks to a career-best 12 total bases on Saturday night, Montgomery is hitting .341/.413/.634 with a more palatable 21.7 percent strikeout rate in 11 games since Sox leadership mashed the reset button on his 2025 season.
Indications are that Fuller & Co. did more than give Montgomery a placebo, so see if you can spot anything. The older image is on the left.
For my money, he's spinning off to his pull side more aggressively before his adjustment, which Chris Getz indicated multiple times was geared around keeping his direction on line for an all-fields approach. But luckily for Montgomery, parsing out the finer details of his swing was not left up to us.
"In Arizona, you have the hitting labs, you have force plates, high speed cameras," Fuller said. "We have Motoki [Sakurai], our biomechanist down there. Rather than guess what we are doing, we went in with a plan and we were able to track it every day.
"We talked about not reinventing who Colson was in two weeks, but reaffirming who he is and what he does best. We saw some things movement-wise that just wasn’t matching up with what he does when he’s at his best. So that was the performance staff, the biomechanists, everybody working together, to say when you are at your best, here’s how you are moving, and every day we can inch closer to that."
No one has tried to make an argument that Montgomery was actually thrilled by the move to get pulled off the Triple-A roster, but Fuller recalled receiving a text from the 23-year-old of 'Let's get after this. Let's get it right' that he took as a sign of acceptance.
Even before Montgomery started playing in ACL games, Fuller described their schedule as eight-hour days of working at the complex before going out to dinner every night, giving him a pretty good concept of the top-100 prospect's mindset and acceptance level of their goals. And as for those goals, well, they sound a lot like they were intended to get Montgomery to spin off the ball less.
"He can go oppo for a home run, he can go pull side for a home run," Fuller said. "He can truly use the whole field with power. So what we talked about rather than trying to work different ways of his bat moving through the zone, it’s just contact points.
"When they throw it away, let that thing travel and be able to have a tight turn and shoot it oppo. When they throw you something a little bit slower, let that bat path just catch it out in front. So rather than feel like he has 12 different swings, it’s one swing that covers different parts of the zone really well."
⚙️⚙️⚙️
Fuller tends to get in more specifics in the past tense, rather than talk a big game about things that are still in-progress. So his discussion about the plan for Andrew Vaughn was more vague, distinguishing it from Montgomery in that there will be no pause in playing games, and will focus more on swing decisions.
"Over the course of a season, there are little things you do one day that add up, and you kind of get to a point where, 'How do I get back to what I do at my best?'" Fuller said. "That’s what we see this as, a quick reset to go down there like any player. Get your body in good position, have your bat path work through the zone so you have coverage, and then being able to execute your game plan when you go in and swing where you want to swing, take when you want to take."
⚙️⚙️⚙️
Braden Montgomery is having his title as The Superior Montgomery threatened anew, but the production from his right-handed swing has really stood out from his instant success in professional baseball.
Entering the draft, Montgomery's left-handed swing was viewed as so much more advanced that some scouts speculated he might give up switch-hitting at some point. Instead, he's 11-for-34 with three doubles and three of his seven homers on the year as a righty. The differential in swing progress is usually caused by uneven reps, and the rep volume doesn't seem like it's going to be the issue that ever fells Montgomery.
"You could see in spring training he was playing catch-up a little," Fuller said. "But the kid loves to work. So he was hitting Trajekt every day. His swing count was really high, but he's built for it, so he's one of those guys we trust he can handle a lot of those swings. But to be in High-A right now already promoted, to be consistent across the board. He's able, from both sides of the plate, to show consistent contact ability, hit balls really hard at good angles, it's been really impressive to watch. So I think he's a guy that loves to be challenged, and we're gonna continue to see that."
⚙️⚙️⚙️
The Return of The King is nigh: Javier Mogollón ran the bases on Sunday without issue, and per the White Sox, is expected to be activated off the Kannapolis injured list this week. He last played on May 8, sidelined after an awkward step on a base.
Charlotte 7, Round Rock 4
- Brooks Baldwin went 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Colson Montgomery was 1-for-5 with a double and three strikeouts.
- Andrew Vaughn, 1-for-4 with a double and a strikeout.
- Kyle Teel started a new hitting streak, going 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.
- Wikelman González improved to 5-0: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K, 20 of 37 pitches for strikes.
- Nick Nastrini: 2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 1 HR, 27 of 40 pitches for strikes.
Birmingham 6, Pensacola 2
- Rikuu Nishida went 1-for-5 with a strikeout.
- William Bergolla, 0-for-5 with a K.
- Ryan Galanie, 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Jacob Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with a homer.
- DJ Gladney was 1-for-3 with a walk, strikeout and CS.
- Riley Gowens: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 1 WP, 55 of 88 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*Birmingham took all six games from Pensacola, which was tied for first place in the South Division at 23-16 before the series.
Hudson Valley 5, Winston-Salem 4
- Jeral Perez went 1-for-5 with a triple.
- Braden Montgomery, 0-for-5 with a K.
- Tanner McDougal: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 45 of 76 pitches for strikes.
Kannapolis 3, Columbia 2
- Abraham Nuñez went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Caleb Bonemer walked twice and struck out twice.
- Ronny Hernandez was 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.
- Ryan Burrowes, 1-for-3 with a walk.
