Martin Maldonado News: Poaching starts from Elias Diaz

Maldonado will start at catcher and bat ninth in Wednesday's game against the Tigers.

Maldonado will pick up his ninth start in 14 games and seems to have at least moved into a timeshare behind the plate with Elias Diaz. The two backstops have produced at a similar level offensively -- Maldonado owns a .572 OPS compared to Diaz's .592 mark -- but Maldonado is regarded as the superior pitch framer of the two. Unless Diaz picks up the pace at the plate to separate himself from Maldonado from a performance standpoint, the playing time could tilt in the latter's favor.