White Sox catcher Kyle Teel hasn’t needed much time to recapture his hitting stroke. In his first nine full games since returning from hamstring and knee injuries, he had at least one hit in eight of them.
The latest one was an impressive opposite-field home run Sunday that cleared the 19-foot left-field wall at Progressive Field in Cleveland.
“The one thing about Kyle is he’s always ready to go,” manager Will Venable said. “He has an intensity and a focus about him that allows him to compete at a really high level. We’ve seen that every day that he’s been in the big leagues.
“So it’s no surprise to me that he’s been able to pick up where he left off. And I really feel like there’s been a bunch of balls that he’s hit that have been caught and hasn’t really tapped into a lot of the slug yet. I think he’s just scratching the surface.”
Teel’s return, combined with the impending return of first baseman Munetaka Murakami, adds a big bat to an already powerful offense that entered Monday tied for second in the majors with the Nationals with 125 homers (the Yankees lead with 128).
Last season, after making his major-league debut June 6, Teel slashed .273/.375/.411 with 11 doubles, eight home runs and 37 walks in 78 games. He was better after the All-Star break, when he slashed .288/.376/.457 and hit all of his homers in 53 games.
Teel’s start to this season was delayed twice, first by a strained right hamstring he suffered March 10 playing for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic, then by a sprained right knee May 16 while on a rehab assignment for the hamstring at Triple-A Charlotte.
Fans’ excitement for Teel’s arrival peaked when he went 5-for-6 in a rehab outing June 19, though, according to Teel, his hitting line was deceiving.
“I was actually getting the most bloop hits I’ve ever seen,” he told the Sun-Times. “The first I hit was a tapper down the third-base line. I broke a bat [and] got a hit, hit a ball off the end of the bat [and] got a hit, and then I hit a double. I hit it hard, though. So I hit one ball hard and got five hits. It’s baseball.”
Indeed it is, but it’s also Teel, who works tirelessly on his hitting, in addition to his responsibilities behind the plate.
“Hitting is a game of adjustments,” he said. “I think it’s important that you just stay diligent with the work you get in and keep going no matter what. I put my head down, go to the cage, do my routine. The game doesn’t care if you were hurt for half a season, full season, two weeks.
“What matters is you go out there and compete and leave it all out there because it’s a hard game. This is why I focus on the process; I don’t focus on the results. I don’t focus on getting hits, hitting home runs. I focus on what I need to do for the game.”
Though Teel’s injuries occurred on offense — first running the bases, then getting his cleat stuck in the dirt on a swing — his body can take a beating playing defense. And having been away for so long, that grind takes some getting used to again.
“I did have those rehab games, but it’s a little bit different catching three in a row [in the majors],” Teel said, having done so for the first time this season June 28-30. “When I went two in a row, the second day I was like, dang, I’m sore today. That day off [July 1], coming back from that, my body felt completely different. Your body just gets used to it every day.”
And the Sox have gotten used to having him back in the lineup.
On deck
RED SOX AT WHITE SOX
Tuesday: Payton Tolle (4-6, 3.39 ERA) vs. Noah Schultz (2-5, 5.86), 6:40 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.
Wednesday: Jake Bennett (3-3, 3.10) vs. Davis Martin (9-3, 3.08), 6:40 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.
Thursday: TBA vs. Anthony Kay (6-3, 4.39), 1:10 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.
