Royals giving Montgomery the opportunity he sought: returning to the starting rotation
Left-hander Mike Montgomery’s return to the Kansas City Royals last summer didn’t just mark a chance to come back to the organization that drafted him and where his professional career began. It also meant he’d get another shot at a starting rotation, something he didn’t have on a regular basis in Chicago.
Catcher Martin Maldonado, who’d been with the Royals on a one-year deal to keep Salvador Perez’s seat warm behind the plate, served as the trade-bait to facilitate Montgomery’s return. Montgomery had been in the Cubs’ bullpen, but he made 13 starts last year for the Royals after they acquired him.
The 6-foot-5 southpaw’s best start of last season came in the same place he’ll start Monday night: Detroit’s Comerica Park.
The Royals (1-2) will begin their second series of the season, a four-game set with the Detroit Tigers (2-1), and Montgomery will make his first start of the season.
In his fifth start last season, Montgomery pitched seven scoreless innings and struck out a career-high 12 against the Tigers on Aug. 10. He allowed just four hits and earned the win.
“He’s a flat pitcher,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Montgomery. “He’s a guy that thought through every pitch that he would make. He had a purpose. He would get you to expand, the days that he was able work ahead. He’d be able to sneak in a first-pitch breaking ball. You always had his changeup in the back of your mind.
Matheny managed against Montgomery when Matheny was with the St. Louis Cardinals and Montgomery was with the division-rival Cubs.
“And when he was able to execute that fastball inside or anything moving towards your back foot, it usually made him a very effective pitcher that day,” Matheny said. “He’s a guy that I saw in different roles, too. He’d come in and throw big innings out of the bullpen. The times I saw him best, he was controlling counts with all pitches. That’s kind of who Monty is in my mind.”
In his 13 starts for the Royals last season, Montgomery posted a 4.64 ERA, 1.55 WHIP and a 2.43 strikeout-to-walk ratio while compiling a 2-7 record. He spent his first four starts simply building up his pitch count.
Montgomery, 31, spent the offseason working on a new curveball grip and refining his cutter/slider. He’ll be counted on to serve as an anchor for the rotation this season, particularly with Brad Keller and Jakob Junis on the injured list for now.
Montgomery struggled against left-handed hitters last season. In his career, left-handed batters had posted a slash line of .270/.339/.407 against him, but in 2019 they gave him fits: .452/.484/.702.
Being effective against lefties will be the first adjustment Montgomery will look to make this season. He has examined and analyzed the issues he had last season and what specifically got him beat.
The answers he came up with weren’t complicated. He said he made more “bad mistakes” against lefties than he did against right-handers, even really good right-handed hitters.
So the adjustment starts between his ears.
“There’s no doubt lefties last year were a pain for me,” Montgomery said. “Really, to me, that’s not that hard of a fix because I think I should be doing a lot better. I think some of it is mental. I think there’s no doubt I’ve got the stuff to get lefties out.
“I think there was a little bit of a mental block against lefties because maybe when I was in the pen it was putting extra pressure to say, ‘OK, I need to get lefties out more so because I’m a reliever,’ and that kind of snowballed a little bit. But really, it’s just going to be (more) how I attack them with my stuff than changing my stuff.”
This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Royals giving Montgomery the opportunity he sought: returning to the starting rotation."
