Injury should mean more WBC time for Rangers’ Chirinos

Team Venezuela isn’t guaranteed to advance to the next round in the World Baseball Classic, but if it does, Texas Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos should be a big part of the action.

Chirinos has moved up in the catching pecking order after All-Star Salvador Perez injured his left knee Saturday night.

After missing a big chunk of last season and with Chirinos behind Jonathan Lucroy on the Rangers’ depth chart, the Rangers are all for Chirinos playing as often and as much as he can in the WBC.

“It would be nice to get him engaged and get as many innings for him,” manager Jeff Banister said. “Lucroy is a front-line guy. It would be nice. I think we’re in a pretty good situation where we have a front-line catcher backing up a front-line catcher.”

Chirinos, the Rangers’ Opening Day catcher last season, replaced Perez and caught the final inning of an 11-10 victory.

This story was originally published March 12, 2017 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Injury should mean more WBC time for Rangers’ Chirinos."