Was he even in the bullpen? i know he got called up so i can only assume he made it to the stadium, which is why i’m baffled that he wasn’t brought in.

And it really sucks about laird, I had come around to keeping him and getting a haul for salty in a trade. Laird is another good example of the buck regime mishandling players (such as botts ).

Should have never lost his job to Popup and should have been the starter in 2005, no doubt. Buck’s love for Barajas sucked. He played ok, but the Rangers had a young catcher who was solid behind the plate and they should have dealt with his growing pains at the plate. Barajas was never a long term solution for this team.

The positve from the Rangers side is if Salty plays well enough to keep the starting job when Laird is back then at least OMFT has built up his trade value with his first half this season and they could move either Laird or Salty in the offseason. Sucks that the catching situation had to “work itself out” with a injury though. I’m not Laird’s biggest fan but I feel bad for the guy.

I’m very excited though to see if MaxRam can hit ML pitching like he has hit in the minors. I think most of us assume that he could skip AAA offensively and it’s just a matter of where you put him on defense to get him AB’s. This team really needs another big RH bat and I hope Max is that guy.

for a veteran backup also. I was wanting to see what Saltalamacchia could do with regular playing time. Lets hope Ramirez follows the Boggs career path and not the Botts career path. Max needs to make the rangers keep him and get rid of Catalanotto and Shelton. Maybe in August we’ll be talking about how Max Ramirez is blocking Chris Davis.

Very unfortunate for Laird last night. Laird is currently at .306 / .360 / .437. I took a look back at some of our community projections and here is who had Laird with a .280 BA or higher:

Miles .325 / .386 / .499 (Didn’t realize Miles liked Laird this much)
bflood36 .282 / .335 / .435
blueballlefty .280 / .339 / .400
jman55 .280 / .345 / .405
Adam didn’t have him at .280 but did have him at .275 / .325 / .425
Mine .270 / .320 / .430 I could have sworn I had him at .280 – I think Ben changed it. ;)

So obviously Laird has exceed even our best expectations as a whole. I think even Lonestarjon had to cringe when he saw Laird go down last night knowing we just lost our best catcher. Let’s hope he doesn’t lose his job to this injury. I don’t see Salty outplaying him anyhow during this 15 day period.

Washington has a lot of team speed and these next two days could get pretty ugly on the basepaths for Texas regardless of who is catching.

Give him some playing time now in the Majors rather than wasting a roster spot and 40 man spot on a veteran. Lets see what he can do right now. He won’t be up here permanently, but maybe he can show enough to give him the next open spot if the team trades Laird at the deadline.

i kept saying last night that this needs to be salty’s extended audition and that a veteran backup (who wasn’t very good) would allow him to do that. well, ramirez also allows him to do that because nobody is going to want to play him a lot behind the plate.

only issue i guess is that you really shouldn’t play the two in the same lineup often (lest someone gets hurt) so ramirez goes from crushing AA pitching to not really seeing a lot of playing time.

think about this: you can’t even PH ramirez unless you are willing to pay him at 1B, and washington loves getting Shelton’s glove in there at 1B in later innings. And, that’s also kind of the reason you can’t even play ramirez at 1B and Salty at C, unless you are willing to keep ramirez there the whole game and not sub for him.

if Laird is out for any extended period of time, then this can’t be permanent. it’s possible the ranger just need some time to grab someone off the street

That our offense is now in a severe slump?

Its about that time for the Rangers to drop off the face of the earth. I bet we get skunked on this road trip against 2 terrible teams.

1-5 roadtrip here we come.

And the 2 guys other than Kinsler who was not in a slump is now on the DL and the other has the same injury and not on the DL., all teams will now pitch Josh high and outside and he will continue to swing at them, if he can’t learn to ajust then he is just another flash in the pan. Ron Washington as a coach in a teaching mode probably a good thing, Wash as a Manager of a big league team, not good, is is NO Manager

I know you’ve got a spot in your heart for Hank (even bigger than the one for Laird).

And now Hank’s probably going to block Davis.

You should contrast the early careers of the two, because their stories have similarities.

I sometimes feel weird pulling for Davis, knowing that it squeezes out Blalock, who was Davis, y’know, before Davis was Davis.

The long term implication here, I think, is that Laird is now harder to trade. He’d have to come back and look healthy to provide any return, and since Salty is healthy and has greater value anyway, I think this just makes it that much more likely he gets dealt providing Laird recovers before the trade deadline.

that Salty does break out of his season long slump and can shoot down a few baserunners. If not we may have NO value in Salty at all. If I had a team I would not be looking to trade Laird. He is an above average defensive catcher and now his stick has come back. Yes for all you Laird haters he is a good hitter. If Salty does not now step up and Max outplays him offensively and defensively we could have a bust on our hands. Especially as a catcher. Plus with Blalock and Davis in our future at first, he will be out of a position.

People throwing a fit over Salty’s performance so far are probably the same people that we crying to let Jason Botts play more to prove himself…

I don’t think people give Salty as much slack as they would a homegrown talent.

If davis put up the same stats that Salty has there would be about 1/3 less bitching about him