The White Sox have been an afterthought for most of this century, but Friday night gave the South Side something to actually brag about. Miguel Vargas got there first, going deep the other way for his 30th homer of the year, and before the night was over Colson Montgomery had matched him.
For those debating, Miguel Vargas is the first to 30 home runs with an opposite field blast.
Vargas doing it with an opposite-field shot matters more than it sounds. Pull-happy sluggers pad homer totals all the time, but going yard the other way at 30 says the swing is legit, not just a product of pulling everything into the short porch. It's the kind of detail that gets buried in a box score and immediately gets called out by beat writers who watch every game.
Miguel Vargas is STROKIN
Vargas landed in Chicago via a 2024 three-team trade that sent him out of the Dodgers' crowded infield picture and shipped Michael Kopech back to Los Angeles. At the time it read like salary-dump filler for a rebuilding White Sox team. Two years later, Vargas made his first All-Star team and is now putting up the kind of power numbers nobody projected for him in L.A.
The company he's keeping is the real headline, though. According to Scott Merkin, Vargas joined Robin Ventura's 1996 season and Joe Crede's 2006 season as the only primary third basemen in franchise history to hit 30 homers and 30 doubles in the same year — and he's just the 5th primary White Sox third baseman ever to clear 30 bombs, alongside Ventura, Crede, Todd Frazier and Bill Melton. That's not a stat line, that's a plaque waiting to happen for a guy who was a change-of-scenery flier a year and a half ago.
Miguel Vargas accomplishments tonight: Joined Robin Ventura (1996) and Joe Crede (2006) as only primary third basemen in franchise history with 30 homers and 30 doubles in the same season. Fifth primary White Sox 3B to hit 30 homers: Frazier, Ventura, Melton and Crede.
Then Montgomery went and did the same thing on the same night. The White Sox's former top prospect at shortstop has had his own bumpy path to relevance, and getting to 30 homers puts him in territory nobody expected from him this early. Merkin flagged it as it happened: Colson became the second Sox hitter to 30 as Chicago built a 4-0 lead.
Colson Montgomery joins the 30 HR Club! t.co/NhyPPibsp7
Two 30-homer seasons from the same lineup in the same game is a rare enough coincidence on its own, but it's not an isolated fluke for this group — Vargas, Montgomery and Munetaka Murakami have now gone deep in the same game 4 times this season, reportedly the most by any teammate trio through a team's first 45 games since at least 1900. Whatever else happens with this White Sox season, that power core in the middle of the order is the story going forward, and Montgomery and Vargas both closing in on 30 doubles apiece the rest of the way is worth tracking too.