DENVER -- Colson Montgomery’s Major League debut was unique from the very start.
Then, in his first trip to the plate, he reached base on a catcher’s interference call -- making him the first player in the Expansion Era (since 1961) to do so in his first MLB plate appearance, per the Elias Sports Bureau.
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And then came one of the greatest defensive plays any player has made in his big league debut -- an over-the-shoulder, full-extension diving catch on a broken-bat looper off the bat of Rockies rookie Ryan Ritter that seemed destined to fall in for an RBI single in the second inning.
After making the incredible run-saving catch, Montgomery -- a 6-foot-3, 230-pound shortstop who was the 22nd overall pick in the 2021 Draft, which took place in Denver -- turned from his face-down position in the outfield grass and showed that he had the baseball.
It marked a spectacular moment to cap an eventful first two innings in the Major League career of the left-handed-hitting slugger, after an eventful 24 hours over which he got the call to the Majors.
“Never,” Montgomery said when asked if he had ever made a catch like that. “[Ritter] hit it, and I knew he kind of hit it pretty soft. I didn’t really get the best jump on it.
“Honestly, I kind of slipped, I think. And then I tried just doing a kind of ‘normal’ over-the-shoulder catch but then my body kind of got turned over. … And then I left a pretty big divot in the grass.”
The divot Montgomery left was an appropriate symbol for the mark he left on his first Major League game. While known primarily for his power at the plate, it was his glove that proved crucial on Friday with the difference in the game being just one run.
Starter Adrian Houser was brilliant, going eight innings over which he gave up two runs -- both unearned -- on four hits while walking two and striking out six on 96 pitches. And the right-hander did so at the most hitter-friendly ballpark in the Majors.
A two-run single by Michael A. Taylor in the fourth inning and catcher Edgar Quero’s first Major League home run in the sixth were enough on this night thanks to Houser’s gem.
His debut on Friday was a moment that Montgomery figured would come at some point, but not when it did. And it came after an up-and-down Minor League career that featured the slugger going through peaks and valleys as he made his way through the White Sox farm system.
Ranked as high as No. 9 among baseball’s Top 100 prospects per MLB Pipeline, Montgomery fell off the list entirely after struggling in his first taste of Triple-A last year. He had a .214/.329/.381 slash line with a 27.8% strikeout rate in 2024, and after a slow start this season, he was sent to the Arizona Complex League so he could recalibrate.
And recalibrate he did. In June, Montgomery posted a 1.010 OPS with six home runs in 16 games. He still struck out at a high rate -- 31% -- but the White Sox saw enough to promote him to the Majors.
Montgomery said that in the whirlwind of the prior 24 hours after he learned of his call-up, he did have some time to contemplate what his Major League debut might be like.
But instead of drawing up what he called “the perfect debut,” he was just thankful to be where his feet were on Friday night.
Afterward, he gave an assessment of Game No. 1 of his Major League career.
“It was awesome,” he said. “Honestly, after the first ground ball that I got at the beginning of the game -- the game finds you. So once I got that ground ball, I settled in pretty quick. And then going into my first at-bat, I thought I was seeing the ball pretty well. I had good ABs, I was pretty happy with it.”
Just as with his promotion to the Majors, Montgomery certainly couldn’t have known his MLB debut would be one of the most unique in baseball history.
But he did know one thing.
“Good things happen for a reason,” he said, “even when you don’t know they’re gonna happen.”