Rangers Trade Chris Ray For Bengie Molina

The Texas Rangers announced today that the club has acquired catcher Bengie Molina and cash from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for righthanded pitchers Chris Ray and Michael Main.

Molina (#11) will join the Rangers on Friday when the club opens a three-game series versus Chicago at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

In addition, the club announced that righthanded pitcher Pedro Strop (#64) has been recalled from Oklahoma City (AAA) and will be in uniform for tonight's game against the Angels in Anaheim. Strop will take Ray's spot on the 25-man roster. Molina has been added to the 40-man roster and Texas will make a corresponding move on its 25-man roster when Molina joins the club tomorrow.

Molina, 35, has batted .257 (52-202) with 3 home runs and 17 RBI in 61 games for San Francisco this season, including a .382 (21-55) average against left-handed pitchers. He batted .344 in April.

He has caught 12 of 59 (20.3%) runners attempting to steal this season.  Molina has caught 28.2% (255 of 904) attempted base stealers in his career, 11th among active players (minimum 480 games), just behind Joe Mauer. He is fielding .998 (1 E/433 TC) in 58 games/55 starts behind the plate in 2010.

The righthanded batter is a career .275 hitter with 142 homers and 692 RBI over 1305 games, including a .296 career mark against lefties.  He has played with LA of Anaheim (1998-2005), Toronto (2006), and San Francisco (2007-10).  He caught every game of the 2002 World Series for the Angels, also appearing in the postseason with the Halos in 2004 and 2005.

Molina won Gold Glove Awards in 2002 and 2003, one of only four active catchers to receive the award multiple times.   He led the league in caught stealing percentage in each of those campaigns. The Gold Glove in 2002 snapped Ivan Rodriguez' 10-year reign in the American League. His .994 career fielding percentage behind the plate ranks 6th among active players.

He has at least 15 home runs in each of last 5 seasons, and has led the National League in sacrifice flies for 2 straight years (11 sac flies in each season). He established a career best with 20 home runs in 2010, and had a career-high 95 RBI in 2008 with the Giants.  He has had at least 80 RBI in each of the last 3 seasons. Molina has batted .288 with runners in scoring position in his career.

Strop, 25, will be in his third stint with Texas.  He was with the club for one day, May 15, and also from June 1-4.  His lone appearance with the Rangers this season was June 2 at Chicago-AL, tossing 1.0 scoreless inning to finish a win over the White Sox.  He has spent the rest of the season with Oklahoma City (AAA), where he has gone 1-1 with 7 saves and a 2.79 ERA (9 ER/29.0 IP) in 24 relief appearances.  He has held opponents to a .211 (23-109) average with 10 walks and 33 strikeouts, allowing just one home run all year.

Strop earned a win in his last Triple-A appearance on Monday vs. Omaha (0.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R-ER, 1 BB, 1 SO, 14 pitches).  He made his major league debut with Texas last season, allowing 6 runs in 7.0 innings over 7 relief appearances.

Ray is 2-0 with a 3.41 ERA in 35 relief appearances with the Rangers this season. The righthander is in his first season with the club after being acquired from Baltimore on December 9, 2009. Main, who was promoted to Frisco (AA) this week but had not appeared in a game, was 5-3, 3.45 (35 ER/91.1 IP) in 15 starts at Bakersfield (A) this season. He is in his fourth season with the organization after being selected in the first round of the 2007 MLB First Year Player Draft.

Texas' 40-man roster remains at 39 players.