Chicago White Sox rookie Colson Montgomery hits the season's longest home run at Rate Field to help snap skid
That's despite making his major-league debut on July 4. And also despite not hitting his first home run until July 22.
Montgomery and Lenyn Sosa both blasted first-inning home runs to help the White Sox (43-75) snap a six-game losing streak with a 6-4 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday in front of a Rate Field crowd of 19,750.
The 23-year-old, left-handed hitter belted a 452-foot blast onto the right-field concourse not too far from the Mark Buehrle statue, which is the longest ball hit at Rate Field this year. That surpassed Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber's 441-foot shot on July 29.
'When he hit that, I felt like that was the farthest ball I had ever seen hit,' Montgomery said of Schwarber. 'I haven't played many games here at the Rate, but to do that is pretty cool.'
Winning pitcher Davis Martin (4-9) certainly appreciated it.
'It's beautiful, man, just beautiful,' Martin said. 'It's something about a lefty swing, man. Sitting on the bench we were in the middle of our in-between meeting and you just hear crack and you just see everybody's head rip up and we're just like 'Oh my god, that ball's destroyed.'
'When the offense is clicking like that, you have the ability to go out there and your margin for error is so much wider.'
Sosa still holds the team lead in 2025 with a 464-foot home run on July 5 in Colorado against the Rockies, a day after Montgomery was called up.
As for the quantity of home runs, Andrew Benintendi and Sosa share the team lead with 14. The way Montgomery is hitting, he can make a legitimate run to overtake them.
After a couple of weeks without a major-league home run, he now has nine on the season — in just 17 games.
Montgomery has been using torpedo bats to help his surge and when he was running out of them, Sox general manager Chris Getz said Friday that he would make sure an order of bats would be coming soon.
They arrived on Sunday, according to Montgomery and the first time he used one from the new batch, he sent the ball sailing.
'I guess I like the bat or the bat likes me,' Montgomery said. 'I would like to think that if you just give me a bat, I'll be fine but some guys have their special thing with certain bats and I just feel comfortable with it.'
But he had to go a little while without it.
'This is the first time I'm using it since the first game in Anaheim (Aug. 1). I broke it in the second at-bat in Anaheim and I used an old bat. I hit one (home run) the next morning, but it still didn't feel right.'
Despite the recent losing skid, the Sox continue to impress with the long ball, hitting a major-league-best 40 home runs since the All-Star break.
Martin threw five-plus innings, allowing three runs on five hits. Grant Taylor picked up his fourth save.
Prior to the game, the Sox optioned right-handed pitcher Wikelman González and left-hander Bryan Hudson to Triple-A Charlotte and brought up left-hander Cam Booser and right-hander Elvis Peguero.
Sox manager Will Venable said the moves were not performance-related and were done to help replenish a bullpen that has been overworked during the week.
Booser got into Sunday's game and pitched a scoreless eighth inning.
With Friday's demotion of Jonathan Cannon, the starting rotation is now a work in progress and Venable has not named starters for Monday or Tuesday's game against the Detroit Tigers.
Left-handed pitcher Martín Pérez was in the Sox clubhouse on Sunday and before the game, he punched his glove hand and proclaimed he was ready to go now.
He was pumped up after Friday's four-inning rehab stint for Double-A Birmingham in which he stretched out to 58 pitches.
Pérez injured his elbow early in the season and he will likely get another start at Triple-A Charlotte before returning to the major-league club.
There was a time during this process that he thought his season was over if he needed surgery.
'Yeah, it was a roller coaster of emotions there,' Venable said of Pérez. 'The first response and talking to him and with his experience having done the elbow before, it was emotional and it was upsetting. So, for him to come all this way and be able to fight his way back and be back out on the field and just moments away from a potential outing again in the big leagues is really cool.'
Pérez, 34, opened the season tossing six no-hit innings against Minnesota on March 31. But he had just three more starts and was 1-1 with a 3.15 ERA before his injury.
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