Normally, you don’t want to see one of your organization’s top prospects helping out the competition. But we’ll make an exception for giving an assist to the opposing team’s bat dog.
Kyle Teel throws the ball back to the pitcher during his WooSox debut on August 13, 2024 at Polar Park.Katie Morrison-O'Day
With the WooSox in town Thursday night, Bruce the Bat Dog made his debut for Triple-A Rochester. The 11-month-old golden retriever is tasked with grabbing bats from the field between hitters.
However, Bruce may have gotten first-game jitters Thursday night at Innovative Field in Rochester, New York. He dutifully came out to grab the bats. However, the golden appeared to struggle a little bit with balancing the weight.
That’s when WooSox catcher Kyle Teel, one of the top prospects in the Boston Red Sox organization, stepped in to make the save of the game.
You can see Teel helping out Bruce at the 0:27 mark the video below:
The WooSox held on to win a 13-10 slugfest against Rochester, who are normally the Red Wings but played Thursday’s game as the Rochester Plates (a nod to the “Garbage Plates” of Rochester culinary fame).
Besides making the big save to help out Bruce, Tell had a solid game, going 2-for-5 with a double, a walk and 2 RBIs.
The 22-year-old catcher was recently named the No. 26-ranked prospect in all of MLB by Baseball America. Draft No. 14 overall in 2023, Teel has rocketed up through the Red Sox farm system, having been called up to Triple-A Worcester last month.
