Despite torrid stretch, Chase Meidroth isn’t passing Colson Montgomery in lineup against righties

DETROIT — Colson Montgomery showed signs of life Saturday, capping a nine-pitch at-bat with a tiebreaking, two-run double in the third inning of the White Sox’ 4-3 victory against the Tigers.

Other than that, he struck out twice and flew out once, putting his batting average at .173 and his OPS at .541 since the All-Star break. Manager Will Venable batted Montgomery sixth in the order for the fifth time in the last six games to take pressure off of him.

Chase Meidroth also went 1-for-4, but it was very different. He had a hard-hit ball each time, defined by Statcast as a ball hit with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph. Meidroth’s exit velocity averaged 96.9 mph, and his second-inning single went off his bat at 99.3. It continued Meidroth’s torrid hitting since the break, which has seen him bat .326 with a .991 OPS.

Yet, Venable is hitting the right-handed Meidroth behind the left-handed Montgomery against righties. Why not move him up?

“There’s certainly a case for moving him up,” Venable said. “But you have to look at [our lineup] in totality. As you’re playing a team like the Tigers and you have A.J. Hinch, who’s going to do everything he can to match up, you have to be mindful of where guys are at. You can shift Meidroth up, but that allows for clean pockets for A.J. to hammer us with matchups.”

Before the series opener Friday, Venable said he experimented with Meidroth higher in the order in one of his half-dozen drafts. But he kept coming back to those pockets of lefties and righties for Hinch to exploit. Hence, Montgomery hit sixth and Meidroth seventh in Games 1 and 2.

But that doesn’t take away from the roll Meidroth is on. In his last 20 games, he’s batting .333 with a 1.063 OPS, five homers and 17 RBI.

“[He’s] hitting balls at better angles. More line drives,” Sox hitting coach Derek Shomon told the Sun-Times. “He’s obviously hitting more homers, but they’ve just been a byproduct of hitting balls hard at better angles, taking his shots and wanting to be aggressive inside of the at-bat.”

Peters back in swing

Tristan Peters is feeling good about himself again. Entering the Tigers series, he was hitting .177 in 29 games since the All-Star break. On Friday, he went 3-for-5 with a home run. He followed that up Saturday by going 2-for-4. It has been quite a relief.

“Felt like myself again; seeing the ball well,” Peters told the Sun-Times. “Honestly, you just got to ride the wave, avoid getting down on yourself. You’re going to have ups and downs. You’re not going to see the ball well. It’s a helpless feeling sometimes.”

Peters, whose pre-break performance made him an All-Star, said the adjustments he has made are more mental than anything.

“I found myself thinking about how my swing should be,” he said. “What I’m feeling as I’m in the box with my body. That gets me off my plan. But in the cage, we worked on staying on my back side a little more, staying behind the ball. [On Friday], it felt really good that I was able to see the ball for a lot longer.”

Benny delivers vs. lefty

It was very unlike Venable to let the left-handed Andrew Benintendi bat against Tigers left-hander Drew Sommers with the score tied at 3 in the seventh inning. But he already had pinch-hit with righty Randal Grichuk to begin the inning and was rewarded with a double.

Venable was rewarded again when Benintendi singled to left, scoring Grichuk for what held up as the winning run. The Sox increased their division lead to 4 ½ games.

“We only had a couple of bullets to fire there [righties Luisangel Acuna and Brenton Doyle on the bench],” Venable said. “Benny was going to get that at-bat against a lefty that was at the end of his day. We thought Benny was the right guy there.”