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.
Now, despite leading shortstops in home runs, Montgomery, 24, has been told he’s not an All-Star, giving him one more thing to prove people wrong about.
After launching out of the break in Toron-to with a double Friday that cleared the loaded bases and a timely home run Sunday — No. 24 in his second big-league season — 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,” he 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. Montgomery — who left Monday’s game after fouling a ball off his shin and was considered day-to-day — took a mental beating at Triple-A to start last season, prompting 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 [an All-Star], 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.”
Manager Will Venable advised his young star not to add any extra pressure to 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.
Not helping Montgomery’s All-Star case were his 121 strikeouts 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.”
Montgomery acknowledged a few days off provided “a very good refresher mentally,” not just for him, but for a clubhouse that’s shouldering plenty of chips while stunning a baseball world that had it inked for another season of cellar-dwelling back in March.
“It just goes back to everyone 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.”