Pregame notes: Kyle Teel debuts

White Sox general manager Chris Getz spoke to the media before Friday's game. That means there are a lot of topics to cover, and no time to waste with things like "prose."

Kyle Teel is up. He has, by his own estimation, 27 family members in attendance for his debut. He got into town around 1:30pm.

"I got some sleep last night," Teel said. "I wouldn’t say I got the best sleep but I got sleep."

Both Getz and Will Venable projected a straight split of playing time between Teel and Edgar Quero behind the plate, with occasional DH-ing being the other means of getting in the lineup available to them. Despite Teel's recent work at first base and the possibility that he will play other positions down the road, he's expected to be catcher-only for now.

"To keep them energized and be able to get the best out of them, having two of them is not a bad thing," Getz said. "It's still an opportunity to develop certain areas of their game. You look at the receiving part, the throwing part, obviously the offensive side. Sometimes if there's a certain element of someone's game that needs to be worked on, it's tough to really dial in if they're playing so often."

On the other side of Teel's joyous promotion, was Korey Lee getting the bad news, however inevitable it was since the day Garrett Crochet was traded.

"He was disappointed, as you would expect," Getz said. "But we know that things can change quickly, whether it be someone gets nicked up for a little bit or someone needs a refresher and perhaps goes down to Triple-A and gets some playing time. But more than anything we feel really good about having those three catchers at the upper minor leagues and major league level and Korey I know is going to go down there and really work hard."

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Shane Smith is being pushed back to Tuesday, setting up what sounds like another bullpen day on Sunday. Mike Vasil gets mentioned a lot when discussing bulk relievers who could fill the gap with Jonathan Cannon out, but obviously Bryse Wilson and Owen White are both here as well.

Getz indicated that Cannon won't require much longer than a minimum 15-day stay on the injured list for his lower back strain. He is first eligible to return on June 18. That projection, as well as a lack of straight replacement options, seems to be driving a plan to patch it together with long relievers until Cannon returns.

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Luis Robert Jr. is back in the lineup. Getz isn't putting all his stock in getting immediate results Friday from his work with director of hitting Ryan Fuller, but he did disagree with Robert's recent and humorous assessment of his trade value.

"He is wrong about that, he's not giving himself enough credit because of the value he can bring to a team and a lineup," Getz said. "[Other teams are] expressing interest. They're continually doing that. We're not actively making phone calls on the behalf of any player. Obviously, as you approach the trade deadline, that will pick up. With that being said, we haven't gone beyond them expressing interest because we really are focused on him getting comfortable at the plate and showing what this organization and the fans, not only in Chicago but in baseball, [know] what he's capable of doing because he's done it in the past."

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X-Rays on Colson Montgomery's right hand/wrist were negative, per Getz, after he was hit by a pitch, which came after he hit two homers on Thursday night. He's out of the Knights lineup Friday, but expected to avoid a Brandon Drury-level derailment.

"There's some soreness in there because he got hit pretty good," Getz said. "We're glad that he dodged a bullet there, so to speak. You look at the two home runs he hit, I watched those last night. I haven't seen consecutive home runs, or two home runs in a game, like that from Colson Montgomery, let alone the distance in which he struck them and the swings that he took."

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Getz is expecting to see Hagen Smith pitching in Double-A Birmingham games again before the end of June, and throwing off a mound again sooner. His elbow soreness has subsided to the point where he's actively playing catch, and there's supposedly been progress from that.

"Brian Bannister has spent a fair amount of time with him, along with Matt Zelski and our pitching coaches," Getz said. "He was very effective in regards to swing and miss. It was just a matter of being in the zone more consistently, and the reason why he was outside the zone more often than he has been in the past is delivery-related. We broke down some things and compared it to where he's been in the past, whether it's been with us or in college, and we feel very good about where he's at."

Grant Taylor is shredding out of the bullpen in Birmingham, but Getz reiterated that this isn't necessarily a permanent placement.

"It'll evolve," Getz said of Taylor's role. "We had to manage his innings regardless this year based on his history. Obviously it's a very talented arm and there's different ways to develop players. We know that although we've got him in shorter stints right now, we're certainly not closing the door on him being a starter in the future. You look at as close of an example as Garrett Crochet and his bullpen days and then transitioning to be a starter and what that has done for Garrett's career and has done for the White Sox."

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Teel not only wore the collared shirt Sergio Santos gave to him upon delivering news of his call-up, but he says Chase Meidroth gets to keep the shirt he leant to him months ago.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Royals

TV: CHSN

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