Chicago White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery has come to the plate 87 times in September. A full 39 of those plate appearances have ended in a strikeout.
While the White Sox have to be pleased with the 24-year-old’s home run total (31), the strikeouts are a problem. For comparison’s sake, his number of strikeouts this month matches the rookie total of Hank Aaron, who made 509 plate appearances in his debut season of 1954.
On Friday, Sept. 25, Montgomery landed in baseball’s all-time record book. His strikeout against the Colorado Rockies was his 223rd of the season, breaking Adam Dunn’s single-season American League record and tying the all-time mark set by Mark Reynolds in 2009.
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The White Sox have two more games in the regular season for Montgomery to surpass Reynolds—not that he wants to.
Youthful exuberance
“I’m still a really young player, so I’m trying to still learn my swing to perfect it,” he told MLB.com. “Learn my game and things like that. I’m not a finished product by any means. It’s one of those things you have to accept. Your talent is you can change the game with one swing, so I’m not going to change my swing. I’m not going to try to shorten up or do any sort of that stuff.”
Montgomery’s home run total suggests he’s capable of tapping into his potential. On the other hand, his .692 OPS for the season is almost impossibly poor for a player with 31 home runs, the last of which came Sept. 5.
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“I would be sitting here lying to you if I’m OK with strikeouts. No one is. They are not,” White Sox hitting coach Derek Shomon told MLB.com. “But on the other side, what are you gaining? Why are the strikeouts occurring? Is it a ton of in-zone miss? Is it a byproduct of chase? Is it a byproduct of chase with two strikes?”
In Montgomery’s case, in-zone miss seems to be the problem; he is far from the worst chaser in baseball but has only squared up 14.6 percent of all pitches he’s hit. That’s the worst rate in the majors, per Statcast.
Although Montgomery makes up for it with elite bat speed, he might need to shorten his path to the baseball to have a long career in MLB.
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