DENVER _ Baseball doesn't stop for anyone, a former Texas Rangers manager used to say, and Jonathan Lucroy has learned that over the past week.
Only last week he was sitting in a parking lot at O'Hare International Airport, waiting for word from the Milwaukee Brewers if he was to join them in San Diego or fly to parts unknown.
The latter prevailed, so a few hours later he hopped on a plane bound for Baltimore to meet the Rangers and join in their quest for a second straight American League West crown.
The one-week anniversary of the deal, which also included right-hander Jeremy Jeffress, arrived Monday with Lucroy behind the plate for the sixth time in seven games. That's nothing unusual for the two-time All-Star, who has been the Rangers' best player the past week.
"He's an All-Star catcher that does special things behind the plate," manager Jeff Banister said. "I'd seen the offensive side of it, so I was ultra-aware of what he could do offensively. Defensively, you see the skill set, but more than anything I else I've learned, what I thought what I knew about him, is how ultra-prepared he is."
Lucroy entered the opener of a two-game series against the Colorado Rockies batting .300 (6 for 20) since the trade with three homers, five RBIs and four runs scored for an offense that has been struggling.
The Rangers' lineup struggled again much of the game, managing only one run on an Adrian Beltre home run through the first eight innings before Elvis Andrus' two-run single in the ninth forged a 3-3 tie and Mitch Moreland's double drove in the go-ahead run in a 4-3 victory.
Lucroy went 0 for 4 and struck out to end the eighth with the potential tying run at third base in a 2-1 game, but the Rangers' rally left them 4-2 in games started by Lucroy.
The Rangers have allowed 19 runs in Lucroy's first six games, but the pitchers insist that it might have been a higher total if not for the way he calls games, frames pitches and blocks balls.
Lucroy could be found hours before the game at Coors Field studying the tendencies of Rockies hitters and also left-hander Cole Hamels, who allowed two runs in six innings.
"That's one of the better things a catcher can do," said Banister, a former catcher. "We can sit and study the opposing hitters all we want. For him, not knowing our guys, it's forced him into learning what do our guys do."
Lucroy, 30, has downplayed the difficulty of the on-the-fly adjustment to a new pitching staff in a new league.
"It's not as hard as people think it is," he said. "It's just getting back there, putting fingers down and catching it."
Banister said that a rookie catcher might have more trouble with the task than a veteran like Lucroy, who is widely regarded as one of the top defensive catchers in baseball.
"This guy's experienced. He's got skins on the wall," Banister said. "He knows the routine of the day, and this is what he does. He doesn't get distracted by anything on the outside."
Right-hander A.J. Griffin, scheduled to start Tuesday, said that Lucroy has been easy to get to know and that he came into their first pairing last week at Camden Yards with a good idea of how the Rangers like to pitch.
That comes from the extra time Lucroy puts in with pitching coach Doug Brocail and in the video room.
"He's a pretty personable guy. He's fun to talk to, and I think he's fitting in pretty well," said Griffin, who worked 5 2/3 innings Thursday on only 77 pitches. "He said he has a pretty good feel for what we're trying to do out there. That was a good first step, and we can take it into the next one."
The day game Tuesday after a night game might be a good time to give Lucroy a second day off since the trade, having caught three in a row and with the Globe Life Park sweat box awaiting the Rangers on Wednesday.
Even the catchers who log more than 120 games a season behind the plate, as Lucroy does, get a day off now and then. But he will want to play and won't prepare any differently.
