Say What?

It’s good to know that my telepathic powers remain strong, even when my subject is playing in a city over 300 miles away. How else to explain Colson Montgomery’s performance in last night’s 3-1 White Sox win over the Guardians? Montgomery hit a run-scoring, opposite-field double in the first and followed that with a solo-shot homerun in the eighth off reliever Tim Herrin (homerun number eight in lefty-on-lefty matchups). Things only got weird in the postgame. That’s when Montgomery noted, “Today, I felt pretty comfortable at the plate. I was more committed to my plan than most days. I feel I’ve been pretty inconsistent with my approach and things like that. Today I just felt pretty committed to my plan.” [today’s online Trib story] Say what? You know you’re not following your planned approach to hitting? Gosh, I made sure my daughter followed hers throughout high school and college. Either pay one of your parents to do the same, Colson, or have a Sox coach remind you. Every game, between innings if necessary. Before I leave and try to figure out how to find today’s game on Peacock, a shoutout to starter Sean Burke (six innings, one run, no walks and eleven strikeouts in six innings) along with relievers Brandon Eisert (two perfect innings) and Grant Taylor (the save with no more drama than facing the tying run after a two-out walk). Now, repeat for the split and a one-game lead in the AL Central.

Second-guessing

I can’t blame White Sox manager Vibes Venable for calling on reliever Seranthony Dominguez last night. Domiunguez was fresh, the Sox were up by two going into the bottom of the seventh, and miracles do happen. But not last night in another walk-off win for the Guardians, 4-3 in ten innings. Dominguez walked two of the three batters he faced, and both those runners scored. Now, though, Venable has to see what’s pretty much obvious to the rest of the baseball world and make Dominguez his thirteenth choice to pitch on any given day. Anything else, and he’s asking for trouble, which is about the only thing Dominguez can deliver on these days. And the White Sox front office may want to think long and hard on whom they want to draft next week. Because I’m down on shortstop Colson Montgomery, big time. Last night, he added two more strikeouts (both called, both hittable, both times Montgomery completely fooled), giving him 111 in 307 at-bats. That comes out to a whiff rate of nearly 34 percent, folks. On top of that, Montgomery has started to get shaky in the field. Last night, he misplayed a two-out groundball deep in the hole hit by Guardians’ catcher Austin Hedges in that fateful seventh inning. A clean pick and Montgomery has a good shot to nail Hedges at first. Why? Because Austin Hedges doesn’t run, he lumbers. Did. Not. Happen. I keep saying the Sox can’t expect to make the postseason unless both Montgomery and Miguel Vargas hit north of .250. Last night, Vargas had two hits, including a three-run homerun, to pull his average up to .248. Montgomery? He went 0-for-4, lowering his average to .218. The Sox will also be hard-pressed to play October baseball with their manager making highly questionable moves, like he did in the tenth last night. With ghost runner Chase Meidroth at second base, Venable elected to go with two righty pinch hitters to face lefty reliever Erik Sabrowski, only Randal Grichuk and Junior Perez both struck out, looking, no less. Ick. Grichuk was hitting for Tristan Peters, who knows how to bunt. Why not let Peters try to move Meidroth to third and then pinch hit Grichuk? Odds are the Guardians would’ve walked Grichuk to set up a lefty-lefty matchup between Sabrowski and Sam Antonacci, who flied out to the warning track to end the inning. That could’ve been a sacrifice fly. But what do I know?

Losing Ugly

Starter Martin Davis walked five and gave up six hits in a paltry 3.1 innings of work last night in Cleveland; Sox pitchers walked nine Guardians on the none, none worse than Grant Taylor’s four-pitch free pass to Rhys Hoskins, forget the righty-righty matchup; Sox relievers frittered away a 5-2 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth; three Sox runners were thrown out on the bases; Taylor yielded a one-out, two-run walk-off homer to Bryan Rocchio. What’s left to say? Other than good teams learn from mistakes, no matter how bad?

No Dice

Noah Schultz had a no-hitter going into the bottom of the fifth. Maybe he would’ve survived if the White Sox had their A-team behind him instead of Luisangel Acuna and Drew Romo trying to pass for Colson Montgomery and Kyle Teel, and maybe if the bullpen had brought it’s A-game instead of letting three inherited runners score. But none of that happened. Orioles 6 Sox 1. The lefthanded Schultz walked four batters, three of them lefties, in 4.1 innings. Not good. Same goes for needing 87 pitches to record thirteen outs. The seven strikeouts were OK+, the 5.86 ERA not so much. Schultz turns 23 next month. Randy Johnson, the pitcher he’s often compared to, wasn’t even in the major leagues until age 24, so I guess in that regard our Johnson is further along. The real Johnson didn‘t have his first above-.500 season until age 26. Three more years of what I saw yesterday? I’d rather things speed up a little. Or a lot. Or David Sandlin gets another look. Or all of the above.

On a Roll

White Sox rookie first baseman Jacob Gonzalez is on a roll. Last night, he collected two doubles among his three hits to go with three RBIs in a Sox 9-3 beatdown of the host Orioles. Gonzalez missed a fourth hit by a foot or so when his flyball in the ninth inning just failed to clear the wall. That’s seventeen RBIs for the 24-year old infielder in 73 at-bats, in case you’re counting. Pitching-wise, Erick Fedde kept putting baserunners on while (kind of) minimizing the damage, with three runs on five hits and three walks in five innings of work. Thank you, rookie reliever Tyler Schweitzer. It would be nice, though, if Noah Schultz stepped up today in his first start off the IL.

Déjà vu All Over Again

Not too long ago, the Orioles completed a rebuild to die for. Talent up and down the lineup, talent ready to make the jump from the minors. But after postseason appearances in 2023-24, things have gone downhill fast, sort of like the 2020-21 White Sox. Bad baseball from the home team was on full display last night in the 10-2 drubbing administered by Vibes Venable and company. The score was actually tied at two going into the eighth inning. That’s when things began to fall apart for the home team. It wasn’t the Orioles’ fault entirely. I mean, nobody in the league has figured out how to avoid hitting Sam Antonacci, who led off the inning with his seventeenth hit-by-pitch. After that, it was only a matter of time. One out, to be precise. After Miguel Vargas struck out, O’s manager Craig Abernaz did something that, analytics-wise, maybe made sense—he kept in lefthanded reliever Grant Wolfram to face lefty-swinging Colson Montgomery. Either Abernaz didn’t have the stats in front of him or, more likely, didn’t bother to check them to see that Montgomery is hitting 37 points higher against lefties than righties. Which helps explain Montgomery’s run-scoring double. After that, the Orioles slowly imploded, giving up six run over the final two innings. But the hitting star of the night may have been another rookie, Jacob Gonzalez, who had two hits to go with three RBIs. That gives the 24-year old infielder nine in his last four games and fourteen in 68 at-bats. More, please. Meanwhile, Chris Getz may want to consider keeping Gonzalez around once Munetaka Murakami comes off the IL. At least, I would.

Pitching, Please

You’d think four runs against a team like the Royals would be enough to secure a sweep, but you’d be wrong. Starter Anthony Kay couldn’t make it through the fourth inning in a 5-4 loss. Oh, and White Sox hitters twice gave Kay a lead to work with. Which leads us to the odd decision by GM Chris Getz to send David Sandlin down after pitching six innings of one-run ball on Friday. What, we have too much pitching? Just look at Kay, whose ERA stands at a hefty 4.50, to know that’s not the case. Oh, Noah Schultz is supposed to be close to coming off the IL. So? There’s no saying Schultz can pitch injury-free, or, if he can, that he’ll be effective. One columnist yesterday beat the drum for Tarik Skubal. Talk about silly. The Sox a team playing with house money; nobody expected them to do anything better than not lose 100 games. It would be shortsighted verging on criminal if Getz shipped off good young players for two or three months of Skubal. With Scott Boras for his agent, Skubal wouldn’t be anything more than an expensive rental on the South Side. See what Schultz and Sandlin can do in the rotation.