"When Giants catcher Buster Posey was hurt last week -- and presumably lost for the season -- the defending World Champions were faced with the rather tall order of replacing perhaps the key cog in their lineup. Posey delivered the goods when he was promoted last season, capping off a World Series victory with the NL rookie of the year.

Posey, at 24, figures to be San Francisco's catcher for the next decade or so, and replacing him on a temporary basis -- for now, anyway -- is Eli Whiteside, who played nine games with the Orioles in 2005 and has been the Giants' back-up since 2009. Whiteside is 31 years old and a .230 career hitter with a little bit of pop. The bottom line on Whiteside is that he's played fewer than 150 big league games in his career. That number explains why the Giants have already contacted the Nationals about Ivan Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, at 39, is a future Hall of Famer in the final year of his contract with Washington. He's a backup catcher himself these days, though he makes the most of the playing time he does get. No one is in better shape that Rodriguez, a fitness fanatic who looks and plays much younger than 39. No, he's not the hitter he was 10 years ago, but he's still a dangerous bat.

Rodriguez has said multiple times that he'd like to finish his career with the Nats, and that's a great sentiment, though he surely knows that catcher is a position of strength for the ballclub with Jesus Flores and Derek Norris waiting in the wings. The opportunity to be part of a pennant race out west may be a strong enough motivation to embrace a four-month move to Northern California."