For those hoping the vigorous online discourse over his struggles would finally cause him to fess up and reveal the real reason behind all the strikeouts the past couple of months, Colson Montgomery has nothing for you.
James Fegan followed up with Montgomery for the Sun-Times, and he says the source of his .198/.256/.371 line since June 12 isn't the back issue that cost him the couple games before then, but his pitch selection and overall game plan.
With his injury history, it’s easy to look at his splits since he missed two games in June with tightness in his lower back and wonder whether his daily maintenance of the injury only can accomplish so much. Montgomery, though, points elsewhere.
‘‘It’s mental,’’ he said. ‘‘If you go up there and you don’t have a plan or a process, [it] doesn’t [bleeping] matter how your body is.’’
If that’s deflection, it’s deflecting it right onto his own shoulders.
‘‘I’ve been having really bad decisions at the plate — expanding the zone, making it easy on the pitcher to get me out,’’ he said.
Making it all about swing decisions doesn't entirely capture the shrinking of the area he's able to cover in my opinion, but there's nothing more to add at this point. Whether it's 100 percent mental, 100 percent physical, or anywhere on the spectrum between those two endpoints, the path forward is basically the same. For the rest of the season, they basically have to hope he turns it around, with perhaps Tuesday's walk and single portending better decisions to come. Afterward, if if Montgomery is going to be somebody who dips into prolonged outages for any reason, then future rosters will likely require additional consideration for alternate infield permutations.
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Speaking of Tuesday, the middle game of a three-game series doesn't usually stir much of a reaction, at least when it merely sets up a rubber match where winning a series in a first-place team's home park is entirely possible.
But the first inning was bizarre enough for the Rangers, what with it's soft-brained baserunning in the top of the frame, and the soft-contact six-run avalanche against Jacob deGrom in the bottom of it, that Evan Grant of the Dallas News couldn't wait for Game 3.
This is what they have done all season. One night the Texas Rangers look ready to surge; the next night ready to surrender.
They are Team Dichotomy.
Yeah, we’ve used those words. In the last week, even. But, hey, if the catch phrase fits, you might as well go with it. A day after the Rangers’ best night of run production this season, they allowed the Chicago White Sox the identical figure in an 11-7 loss Tuesday.
The loss dropped the Rangers into second place, but only by a half-game behind the Astros. You know, the same Astros who fired their GM with one month to go in the season. The AL West is driving everybody who watches it insane.
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When I heard on Monday that the Rockies were calling up Mason Adams, I later at the box score of Colorado's 13-3 loss to Washington, saw this line ...
... and briefly figured it would put any second-guessing of the Brenton Doyle trade to rest for the remainder of the year.
Then I remembered that I thought he was supposed to be starting, clicked on the name, and discovered that "Adams" is to Colorado what "Montgomery" is to the White Sox. Blake Adams made his major league debut for the Rockies on Monday, and Mason Adams followed by making his debut on Tuesday. The latter Adams fared better.
The Statcast data suggests it was exactly the kind of Adams you'd expect -- a lot of strikes from a wide arsenal, and a lot of pitches because third strikes were hard-earned. He generated just seven whiffs on 33 swings, but 16 foul balls. Warren Schaefer pulled him one batter into the fifth after allowing a leadoff double on his 75th pitch of the night, saying Adams was approaching his limit and saw no point in having him face CJ Abrams.
Adams had 40 friends and family come up from Jacksonville for the debut, and liked how it all played out.
“I attacked with all my stuff,” Adams said. “I got to two strikes pretty quickly quite a few times, then they extended the at-bat. But I liked the game plan.”
Schaefer said he'll try to extend Adams beyond 80 pitches to complete the ramp-up from Tommy John surgery, and that'll be the distinguishing factor if it materializes. As it stands, the White Sox have enough candidates who shouldn't be pushed beyond four innings that they traded from a surplus.
