Colson Montgomery’s All-Star snub firing him up for White Sox' second-half surge 86%
By Mitchell Armentrout99%
7/20/2026, 11:29:52 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Recency Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 23% saturation with 172 hits. Analysis detected 1,435 faulty-reasoning hits from 748 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 78.3% and a BS Rank of 86% (3,106 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 85.80% of the article peer group.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Colson Montgomery didn’t need another chip on his shoulder, but he’ll take it.
The White Sox ’ lanky shortstop has heard his whole career that he’s too big to stick at his position, that his hefty strikeout rate would keep him from being a viable big-leaguer and, entering this season, that his team wasn’t going anywhere.
Most recently, despite leading MLB shortstops in home runs, Montgomery has been told he’s not an All-Star, giving the 24-year-old one more thing to prove people wrong about.
After launching out of the break in Toronto with a loaded-bases-clearing double and a timely home run — No. 24 of his sophomore campaign — Montgomery said his All-Star snub is motivating him in the second half “as it should.”
“As a competitor, you should see yourself as the best, because if you don't, you're just selling yourself short,” Montgomery said before the Sox returned stateside for a three-game set with the Rangers.
“You're not really giving yourself the inner confidence that you need to play this game, especially with how much it can just beat you down.”
That’s coming from somebody who knows it.
The Sox’ 2021 first-round draft pick took a beating at the plate at the beginning of last season, when his dismal start at Triple-A Charlotte prompted Sox brass to pull him from game action altogether to regroup at their Arizona training complex.
Since then, Montgomery has established himself one of baseball’s most productive shortstops at the plate while flashing more leather than the Sox could’ve expected.
Colson Montgomery goes deep!
pic.twitter.com/rEuUrBtC7V
- Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 19, 2026
His two-run bomb at the Rogers Centre on Sunday was the 45th of his career, coming just a few days shy of a year since slugging his first career MLB home run on July 22, 2025, at Tampa.
Only Kyle Schwarber (57) and Junior Caminero (49) logged more dingers over that time, according to MLB statistician Sarah Langs.
Montgomery’s work before the break still wasn’t enough to get him an All-Star nod alongside teammates Miguel Vargas, Munetaka Murakami and Tristan Peters.
Adding salt to the wound were the pair of division rival shortstops who got in ahead of Montgomery: Royals superstar Bobby Witt Jr.
(.280/.350/.451 with 13 homers entering play Monday) and Tigers rookie Kevin McGonigle (.282/.390/.425, nine homers).
Aside from his position-leading homer total, Montgomery arrived in Texas with the third-most RBI (57) and fourth-highest slugging percentage (.477) among shortstops.
“Of course I thought I should have been, but obviously it didn't work out, and all I can do now is just respond,” Montgomery said.
“I take that as like a little chip on my shoulder, I guess.”
Colson Montgomery gets an ice bath after a game-winning RBI single against the Angels earlier this season.
Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
Manager Will Venable advised his young star not to put any extra pressure on himself, “but if that's something out there that can give him an extra boost and put that chip on his shoulder, that's great.”
“There are still lots of awesome awards you can go out and win by having a really good second half here,” Venable said.
“He's already done so much for us this year.”
Not helping Montgomery’s All-Star case were his 121 punchouts before the break, second-most among shortstops and in the top six overall, symptomatic of his streaky nature at the plate.
“I've come to realize that I'm not sure how to characterize where Colson's at,” Venable said.
“There are some at-bats where he looks maybe out of sync, and then in the same game, he's hitting the game-winning homer.
… He's doing what he's doing, which is getting big hits for us and driving in runs.”
Montgomery acknowledged a few days off provided “a very good refresher mentally,” not just for him, but for a clubhouse shouldering plenty of chips while stunning a baseball world that had them inked for another season of cellar-dwelling back in March.
“It just goes back to everyone [outside] still doubting a little,” Montgomery said.
“We're a good team, we've had success and we're very confident in ourselves.
And I think that's what's most dangerous about a team, especially a young team.
… I think we all have a chip on our shoulder just because we want to keep proving everyone wrong, and prove ourselves right from spring training.
This is what we expected.”
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