Colson Montgomery’s second at-bat Thursday in Kansas City put him in a record book no hitter wants to visit. The White Sox shortstop struck out for the 223rd time this season in the afternoon finale at Kauffman Stadium, matching Mark Reynolds’ Major League single-season mark from 2009.
Quick facts
- Montgomery entered Thursday with 31 home runs and 87 RBIs.
- His 223 strikeouts moved past Kyle Schwarber’s 218 and Adam Dunn’s White Sox and American League record of 222 from 2012.
- Montgomery, 24, carried a .118/.250/.250 September line into the game, with two homers, 10 RBIs, 37 strikeouts and eight walks.
- White Sox hitter Munetaka Murakami recorded his 191st strikeout in the first inning Thursday.
The number is a hard one to ignore, particularly after a difficult September, but Montgomery is trying not to let the strikeout total dictate his approach. His focus remains on finding pitches he can drive rather than taking at-bats concerned with the possibility of another miss.
“You tend to get more of whatever occupies your mind,” Montgomery said recently. “Instead of dwelling on strikeouts, I’m trying to think about getting a good pitch to hit.”
Montgomery said he is still learning both his swing and his game, with no illusion that he has reached a finished version of himself. The upside, he said, is the ability to alter a game with one swing, and he does not intend to abandon that identity by shortening up simply to cut down the strikeouts.
That tension runs through the White Sox lineup. The club does not treat strikeouts as acceptable, but it also has not made them the sole measure of an offensive player’s value or approach.
Hitting coach Derek Shomon said the staff’s work begins by identifying the kind of strikeout being produced. They look at whether hitters are missing pitches in the zone, chasing, or expanding with two strikes, then narrow the examination to pitch type and location.
“Nobody is comfortable with strikeouts,” Shomon said. “But you have to understand what comes with them and why they happened before you can get to the real cause.”
Shomon believes the White Sox offense has benefited from allowing hitters to stay confident and free enough to strike the ball hard on a line. That does not mean excusing the misses, he said, but it does mean avoiding a reaction that takes away the aggressive traits that have helped the group produce.
For Montgomery, the season’s most unwanted record now sits beside considerable power production: 31 home runs, 87 RBIs and a reputation for game-changing damage. The next task is carrying that belief through the final stretch without letting 223 become the only number attached to his year.
