There were multiple issues that got Colson Montgomery sent to Camelback Ranch last April. But one of them, by his own admission, was a mindset that found him chasing the results that would get him promoted to the majors.
By most indications, that's not how Montgomery really thinks any more.
"Colson is a prime example, he's one of the best at focusing on the process," said Kyle Teel. "You won't know whether he's 0-for-3 with three punchouts or 3-for-3 with three homers. He's the same every single time. He's taking the same approach, and that's why he's so good. He sticks to his plan."
If there's a cause for Montgomery not making the American League All-Star team this weekend, beyond Bobby Witt Jr. and Kevin McGonigle being good and deserving players in their own right, it would be because of a June swoon that saw him hit .186/.263/.442 with a 38.9 percent strikeout rate.
The difficult month also included Montgomery missing a pair of games with lower back tightness, with three of his seven defensive errors on the season coming since he returned in mid-June. He's still been either a top-15 or top-25 player in the AL depending on your preferred version of wins above replacement, and Montgomery is human enough to harbor disappointment that it wasn't honored with an All-Star bid.
It's just that it's tough to square the notion that the same person who recently said "Where it seems like I'm not producing to what I can be, that's just times where I'm adjusting," also decided to go off for home runs and multi-hit efforts on back-to-back days in Cleveland because he was mad about being snubbed for an invite to Philadelphia. The residue of sending Montgomery to Arizona last year is that he's going to speak with a 30,000-foot view about his own performance for a while.
"The people we're facing are really good too, right?" Montgomery said. "They're really good. So we're not going to slug and hit a ton of homers every single game, you know? Hitting is all about hitting mistakes. That's what I believe in. Of course, there's going to be times you're able to hit painted balls for doubles and things like that. But this game is based off mistakes. You capitalize on the pitcher's mistakes, and that's kind of what we tell ourselves."
Other than the middle-middle heater that Tim Herrin challenged him with on Saturday night, Montgomery's strong weekend saw him damage a fair amount of painted pitches to put his OPS back over .800 for the year. Still, the 24-year-old shortstop still has plenty of work to do by his own standards. He's running the third-lowest qualified contact rate in MLB -- partly because Munetaka Murakami has missed too much time to push Montgomery up to fourth -- and because he's chasing too much (32.5 percent) and a tick more than last year (30.5 percent). That dovetails with his comments that 44 home runs in 156 games played leads to a lot of different methods of attack employed against him.
As Montgomery himself has said, he views his job as driving the baseball, often over the fence. So with his power focus and ample swing-and-miss, there is a reason why the viewing public might see his offense as running hot and cold. But through what's now just over a calendar year of major league action, even with plenty of meat left on the bone for perfecting Montgomery's approach, it's shaken out to a productive hitter that hasn't required much intervention from his supervisors.
"I feel like I often get the question of 'Are you concerned about Colson?' because he might have these little lulls, but he always finds his way back," said Will Venable. "Those lulls are very short-lived and he's really been a consistent performer from Day 1."
As a choppy, nervy and ultimately successful weekend in Cleveland testified to, the 2026 White Sox, seemingly a year early to be contending in the AL Central, are going to have their own lulls to weather. They look like they can bash their way beyond their imperfections on some nights, and like their unsettled bullpen picture and the fifth-lowest batting average with runners in scoring position will undercut them on others.
But Montgomery's view of a young Sox team's progression mirrors his own self-evaluation. For a group of players who are still figuring it out, they're doing pretty well, and the fits and starts that come with that "are just part of the game."
"I think everyone in here has a good idea of what their identity is and what they need to do at the plate, and I think everyone in here also reads the situations in games," Montgomery said. "The league is also figuring out that this isn't like past White Sox teams that had troubles producing runs or hitting homers or anything like that. We're not that team anymore. We're a really good team, we've got a really good offense, and have some really good hitters. There's a lot of talent here and we're in a really good spot."
