CLEVELAND – Back in June, starter Davis Martin looked like the White Sox pitcher most likely to represent the team in the All-Star Game. Three games into the Sox’ postseason run, Martin is one of three pitchers on their active roster yet to see action, as Will Venable has opted to lean on relievers whenever his staff is rested enough to enable it.
Moreover, with only three true right-handed hitters on the Guardians roster (outfielder Jo Adell, catcher Austin Hedges, platoon first baseman David Fry), future straightforward opportunities in the American League Division Series for rotation mainstays like Martin and Erick Fedde aren’t readily apparent.
“It’s ‘team before I’ and all that stuff, and you can laugh at it, but it obviously works,” Martin told the Sun-Times. “It’s how do you win the game? How do you put your team in the best position to win? If it’s throwing one inning, if it’s throwing seven innings, whatever it may be, it is what it is. You take your ego out of it, you take the goals of trying to do stuff for yourself and put the team in front of you.”
After the Sox spent the final month increasingly shielding Anthony Kay from facing opposing lineups a third time through during his starts, his above-average left-handed velocity has found a role this postseason. Kay will open Game 2 on Monday, his third appearance in four Sox playoff games, before Sean Burke eventually gets involved in some bulk capacity.
It’s not exactly the starter role Kay came over from Japan this winter to fill, but the potential switch was communicated with weeks left in the regular season.
“We’ve had a lot of openers and stuff, so a lot of guys have done that already,” Kay said “It’s kind of like our motto, I guess: just whatever way possible.”
Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith lead the Sox in postseason innings thus far, as even Burke is unlikely to work much beyond the four innings, roughly 70 pitches he was extended in the Wild Card series. So if Sox pitchers dreamt as kids of helming a seven-inning playoff start, those ambitions are likely going unfulfilled.
“I dream of the World Series more than I dream of a playoff start,” Burke said. “So whatever is going to get us the World Series, we’re all on board with that.”
Teel, the ABS “sniper”
Sox catcher Kyle Teel only went 2-for-3 on ABS challenges behind the plate in Game 1 of the ALDS, knocking him down to 7-for-8 in the playoffs. Yet his reputation remains high among teammates.
“I’ve jokingly called him the sniper, the ABS sniper,” Burke said. “You have someone back there that’s not afraid to do it and that’s really good at it.”
All year, the Sox catchers have been at the top of the league for volume of ABS challenges, top of the league for their rate of what Statcast terms as “reasonable challenges,” and bottom of the league for success rate.
But in preaching to players that letting opportunities to challenge pass by is worse than challenging unsuccessfully, Sox coaches expressed faith that their catchers’ accuracy would improve with time.
Finally, a healthy Teel playing every day is starting to show that improvement.
“He’s slowly but surely started outputting really, really solid catcher defense,” said bench coach Walker McKinven.
