On Monday night there was a lot of joking around in a half serious way about playing Bryce Harper in the catcher position. The reason that it was half-serious is because for the second time in 3 days, the Nationals lost a catcher to injury.
On Saturday night the Nats lost starting catcher Wilson Ramos for the season with a torn ACL and just 2 games later AA-call-up Sandy Leon found himself laying on the ground in agony as well. Leon's injury was a sprained ankle caused by a collision at the plate. Four innings of a Major League career, 1 strikeout looking, and down to the DL, his Major League chance possibly washed away.
While Bryce Harper could put on the catcher's gear, that is the last thing the Nationals want. In their mind Harper never played catcher and never will again. Especially after watching all these violent collisions around the league, and within the organization where catchers careers are ruined, you'd have to be insane to put Bryce there.
So the organization has made the decision to bring up Carlos Maldonado. He is the AAA catcher that was overlooked on Saturday night for the likes of AA Sandy Leon. Maldonado played a few games in 2006 & 2007 for the Pirates (21) and a handful for the Nats in 2010 (4), but has been a career minor leaguer since 1997.
At 33 years old Maldonado is being brought up just to fill in. Not as exciting as Leon, who at 23 years old is 10 years younger and was somewhat of a "prospect".
So for the Nationals not much changes. Jesus Flores is the everyday catcher and Maldonado will be around to back him up...here's hoping these guys can stay healthy and can we ELIMINATE the home plate collision from the game already?
By the way, I've heard Pudge Rodriguez's name mentioned by fans...
No comments:
Post a Comment