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Colson Montgomery of White Sox trying to focus on positives, not strikeout record
A baseball infielder set a new single season strikeout record; the player continues preparing for the postseason
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CHICAGO (AP) — Colson Montgomery wants to focus on his accomplishments, not on breaking the season strikeout record for batters.
In his second major league season, the 24-year-old Chicago White Sox infielder struck out for the 224th time Friday, one more than Mark Reynolds' total with Arizona in 2009. Montgomery entered Sunday's regular-season finale with 225 over 564 at-bats and 634 plate appearances.
“It’s definitely something you don’t want your name to be a part of of,” Montgomery said Sunday. “But at the end of the day, you can’t be looking so much at the negative stuff. I’ve looked at a lot of the stuff we’ve all done this year and me personally, and I felt like it’s been a lot of positives.
Montgomery began the final day of the regular season with a .199 average, 31 homers and 87 RBIs for the postseason-bound White Sox.
“For me to really go into the dumps about what just happened and for me to be so upset about it and not try to get better in the position we’re at at as a team right now, I feel would be selfish,” he said. “It’s just one of those things like if you go up to the plate, you know, you’re feeling tense and stuff, you know you’re probably going to not really do what you want to do. So recently, I’ve been going up there trying to be as a loose as I can, simplify my plans as much as I can.”
He entered the last day in a 6-for-73 slide over 22 games. He's been working on swing decisions.
“If you're swinging at good pitches, you're giving yourself a chances, you know, to be able to do something productive and get some type of result," Montgomery said. "So that's kind of like in my work and my routine. Swing-decision stuff and just trying to get in that competitive mindset.
“I think it’s just continuing to do what got me here,” Montgomery added. “There's some things in the cage that we’ve been doing and a lot of it is is just kind of go out there and, you know, just try to be open-minded and compete."
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