Big-league Braden Montgomery's top moments at A&M

Another Aggie has received the call.

One of the best Texas A&M baseball players in recent memory, Braden Montgomery, is set to make his major league debut on Tuesday night as the Chicago White Sox face the Atlanta Braves at Rate Field.

With the White Sox just two games behind Cleveland for first place in the American League Central, the Aggie is batting sixth and playing right field.

First pitch on the Southside is set for 6:40 p.m. CT.

Montgomery breezed through Chicago’s system as the White Sox’s No. 2 prospect and the No. 21 overall prospect in all of baseball.

He will become the 69th Aggie to appear in the major leagues and the first to debut this season.

In 56 games this season — split between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte — the 6-foot-2 and 220-pound switch-hitting outfielder is hitting .314 with an OPS of .970.

Of course, his prowess in the box and defensively were routinely on display in Aggieland.

In Montgomery’s lone season with the Aggies, he slashed .322/.454/.733 with 27 home runs, 14 doubles and 85 RBI in 61 games as he helped the 2024 squad to a national runner-up finish...though he infamously did not play in Omaha due to a broken ankle.

Still, his short but memorable stint in College Station earned him All-American acclaim from literally every outlet in addition to first-team All-SEC and SEC All-Defensive Team honors.

Before he debuts with the Chicago White Sox, here’s a quick look back at Montgomery’s best moments in Maroon & White.

“Storybook” home run in his first Aggie AB - Feb. 16, 2024
A&M dominated McNeese on Opening Day, bludgeoning the Braunies to the tune of 15-0.

However, Montgomery gave the 12th Man a glimpse of what was to come when the No. 3 hitter tagged a 3-2 offering from Zach Voss to give A&M an early 1-0 lead.

“That was awesome. It was awesome,” Montgomery said then. “We’re playing the same game. It was just a lot more excitement with the 12th Man showing up tonight, so that was sick. It was cool to have that happen. Now that it’s over, it’s on to the next one.”

His first A&M home run carried 414 feet to right-center. Twenty-six more long balls followed.

Big bomb in a big-league ballpark - March 3, 2024
Everybody wants to hit a home run on an MLB field, right?

With the Ags playing in the Kubota College Baseball Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Montgomery did exactly that...twice!

His second was certainly grand.

A&M led Arizona State 3-0 in the second, and with the bases loaded and only one down, Montgomery stepped in to face Matt Cornelius.

Batting right-handed, the Aggie deposited a 443-foot grand slam that landed on the concourse of the second deck.

“He put something over the middle of the plate that was something I knew I could handle, to say the least,” Montgomery said that afternoon. “I just tried to put a good swing on it, and it went well for me.

“It's an offense that is going to hit you if you make a mistake, for sure. If you walk guys, then we're going to take advantage of it. It's a special offense.”

That special offense ultimately went down as the best in school history as the 10-5 triumph over the Sun Devils served as the 11th in A&M’s season-opening 17-game win streak.

Taming the Tigers at Blue Bell - March 28-30, 2024
There was an extended period of time where it felt like every Montgomery at-bat was going to result in something extremely cool.

A three-game sweep of Auburn at the end of March was perhaps the peak.

Earning SEC Player of the Week honors, the star went 7-for-15 with FOUR home runs, a double, two walks, eight runs scored and seven RBI.

He homered in the series-opener on Thursday. He hit two more on Friday.

But in Saturday’s finale, he saved the best for last.

The 457-footer cleared the TV camera tower in centerfield and served as his 16th home run in his first 28 games.

Career-best five RBIs in crazy comeback - April 27, 2024
Perhaps the craziest game Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park has ever seen pitted the powerful Aggies vs. eventual Golden Spikes winner Charlie Condon against each other.

To nobody’s surprise, the ballpark turned into a launching pad during the first game of a Saturday doubleheader.

In a game that featured nine total home runs in just seven innings, Georgia jumped out to a 9-0 lead...in the first inning!

But the Aggies rattled off 19 unanswered runs, beginning with eight in the first.

Trailing 9-8 in the bottom of the third, Montgomery worked a game-tying walk.

The score remained deadlocked 9-9 until A&M exploded for eight in the sixth, the biggest of which was Montgomery’s grand slam that served as the staggering blow to take a 16-9 lead.

A&M clinched the run-rule victory with a Ted Burton homer and Travis Chestnut’s unlikely two-run shot an inning later.

Coming back from down nine matched the 1998, 2012 and 2022 clubs for the largest comeback victory in program history.

Historic Draft Day - July 14, 2024
Entering the 2024 MLB Draft, it was a foregone conclusion that Montgomery would become the 14th Aggie in history to be a first-rounder.

The question was how high?

With the 12th pick, the Boston Red Sox gave us the answer, making him the highest-drafted position player in program history.

At the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, a sharply dressed Montgomery realized a childhood dream...and subsequently became a multi-millionaire.

Wheeling out on stage was just the beginning of his professional career.

Of course, he changed the color of his Sox without ever playing for a Boston affiliate, moving organizations in a Dec. 11, 2024, trade that sent Garrett Crochet to Beantown. Montgomery was part of a return package that included Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman González.

Less than two years after Rob Manfred announced his name in Cowtown, Braden Montgomery is a big leaguer in Chitown.