Injured White Sox catcher Kyle Teel saves Davis Martin from tipping pitches

BOSTON — White Sox catcher Kyle Teel has a skill that came in handy Tuesday night when starting pitcher Davis Martin wasn’t fooling the Red Sox in the first inning.

“I would say I’m good at picking up patterns, good at pattern recognition,” Teel, who’s on the injured list with a sprained left ankle, told the Sun-Times. “Kind of a big role that I feel like I’ve had on the IL has just been helping our defense, helping our pitchers, trying to protect them as much as possible.”

While the Red Sox were pounding Martin for six runs and six hits — including back-to-back homers, the first being a grand slam — Teel was watching closely from the dugout, trying to detect whether Martin was tipping pitches.

“It’s a lot easier from the dugout,” Teel said. “When you’re behind the plate, you’re really focused on catching the ball, trying to frame pitches, throwing guys out, blocking balls. It’s hard to really key in on certain things. But it’s one of those things like, once you see it, you see it.”

And once Teel saw it, he went to work confirming it.

“Once I think there’s something, I log it in a notebook and see how many are accurate to what I was putting down,” he said. “If I have a page full of checkmarks, I give it to the coaching staff. They do a really good job, as well, finding tips on guys. It’s a good thing to have as a catcher. It’s something I brought from college, just learning how to do that.”

It made a difference. After the first, Davis retired 12 of the next 14 batters he faced, inducing mostly soft contact outside of a solo homer in the fifth. But he only lasted two batters into the sixth, departing with 91 pitches, because of that long first inning due to the tipping.

“Generally, there’s [tipping from] the glove,” Sox pitching coach Zach Bove said, “but guys do different mannerisms, stuff like that, that you would think would never be a thing. For whatever reason, guys create these patterns, and other teams are trying to look at the patterns.”