SURPRISE, Ariz. -- There were times during Braden Montgomery's recovery and rehab process from a right foot fracture that he wanted to jump right back in the box. After getting plunked on that foot during a Double-A Birmingham game on Sept. 6, he was added to the White Sox contingent in the Arizona Fall League but was held back for the first two weeks of the circuit. He finally got the green light Tuesday.
"I want to be healthy more than anyone else wants me to be healthy," MLB's No. 35 overall prospect said. "There are obviously certain posts you have to make. They want to make sure you're off for four or five weeks. You have to build your load back up. Make sure you're ready to take everything that comes with playing nine-inning games six games a week.
"That was the hard part was waiting and allowing the progression to happen and not just hopping into something and going 100."
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So maybe it was a good thing that Montgomery took a beat and didn't swing at the first pitch he saw during the first game of Glendale’s doubleheader at Surprise. The second pitch went a lot more than 100.
The top White Sox prospect doubled in his first at-bat Tuesday and added three walks in his AFL debut, thus reaching in all four of his plate appearances for the Desert Dogs.
After watching a 94.5 four-seamer from right-hander Jose Corniell (TEX No. 3) sail in for strike one, the switch-hitting Montgomery, who batted from the left side all afternoon, lifted the next 93.6 heater in the zone and sent it 388 feet to center field for an RBI double. The exit velocity was 110.2 mph, giving Montgomery the second-hardest hit ball by any Glendale batter this season in his first trip to the plate.
"I just wanted to add a little bit of normalcy, see a bunch of pitches," he said. "I guess that was the same approach the whole day -- see pitches, make good swing decisions and build from there."
Montgomery didn't whiff on any of the 18 pitches he saw, fouling one sinker off in the seventh on his only other swing of the day. He certainly didn't look like a batter who hadn't been in game action for a month and 15 days, and the fact that he played right field for all seven innings helped matters.
"I feel like I executed the plan really well," Montgomery said. "But that's the best part of baseball. Take off the cleats, and then you've got to go do it again tomorrow. I'm glad to have had the time off to reset, think how about how I want to go about things. Now I'm glad to be back on the field."
It's been an eventful introduction to pro ball for the former Stanford and Texas A&M star.
Drafted 12th overall by the Red Sox in 2024 while still nursing a broken right ankle from the NCAA Super Regionals, he never appeared in a game in the Boston system as he was dealt to Chicago in the Garrett Crochet trade last December. He climbed three levels in his first Minor League campaign, slashing .270/.360/.444 with 12 homers and 14 steals in 121 games before the foot fracture caused him to hit the brakes.
Tooled up with plus power and plus-plus arm strength that make him a great fit in right, Montgomery could be part of the next wave of young White Sox talent set to take over on the South Side, with Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero already arriving this summer. In that way, his time in Arizona could be a launching pad toward an even bigger 2026.
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Montgomery just had to be healthy first. Now that he is, he'll continue with a likely game-on, game-off approach with Glendale. That's just another part of the process designed to help him hit 110 mph lasers this fall and well beyond.
"Each [day] I go out there and take a step forward, it's a good day," he said. "Even if I go out there and fail, hopefully I'm learning something from that. That's how I approached the whole first professional season was to fail a different way each time in hopes of finding a bulletproof approach."