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Chappel injured, out until the All-Star break
June 18, 2083
Al Vincent
Staff Writer
It's bad enough that the Broncos were in the process of getting demolished by Nashville, but to add insult to injury, Denver will be without the services of catcher Lee Chappel until after the All-Star break. In the fourth inning of yesterday's game against the Predators- an inning in which Nashville turned a 6-3 lead into a 9-3 one- Nashville catcher Daniel Lane barreled into Chappel in a play at the plate, and Chappel was forced to leave the game with an injury to his ribs. Chappel, who is second in the American League with a .363 batting average and a 1.121 OPS, is expected to miss about two weeks. That would allow him to come of the disabled list in the first week of July, during the All-Star break.
Backup catcher George Lauritsen, who has hit .351 with an .861 OPS in 37 at bats, is expected to take his place in the starting lineup. General manager John Mounts has said that he does not plan to call up 24 year old John Landon from AAA and have him sit the bench for two weeks as Lauritsen's backup. "Right now, what he needs is to keep playing every day. He's[Landon] struggled a bit to adjust to AAA, and coming up here and then not playing, would be a bad thing, I think. We will pursue other options to backup Greg [Lauritsen]." Since being promoted to AAA at the beginning of May, Landon has hit .273 with just a .638 OPS.
Instead of calling up Landon, the Broncos have signed veteran catcher Kurt Christner. The 40 year old Christner was released by Portland earlier this year. Christner, a switch-hitter, is a career .286/.329/.450/.780 hitter with very good defense. Last year, he had a .713 OPS and won a Gold Glove award. Christner has previously played for Tucson, Knoxville, New Jersey, and Portland.
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