After spending brief parts of 5 seasons with the San Francisco Giants from 1996-2000, Mirabelli was sold to the Texas Rangers before the 2001 season started and served as Ivan Rodriguez's backup this season. At the time of the trade Mirabelli was batting .102, with just 5 hits in 49 at-bats.

While the Rangers gave up nothing to acquire the lifetime .218 hitter, the Sox parted with Justin Duchscherer, Boston's minor league pitcher of the year last season at Trenton. The 23-year old Duchscherer was 6-3 with a 2.44 ERA for AA Trenton in 2001 and had just earned a promotion to AAA Pawtucket, where he was to have started Friday (June 15) night's game for the PawSox.

The trade makes sense for the pitching thin Rangers, who are desperate for arms at any level. But for the Red Sox? How does acquiring a no-hit career backup for a solid pitching prospect make much sense, considering that Mirabelli would appear to be on borrowed time, his services no longer needed once Jason Varitek comes back from elbow surgery. Mirabelli doesn't even stand out from the man he'll replace on the Sox' 25-man roster, catcher Marcus Jensen.

It was said Boston acquired Mirabelli for his defense and experience, but they nearly mirror those of Jensen.

Mirabelli has played in only 163 games since his big league career began in 1996. And in that span he has struck on 116 times in 408 at-bats, while collecting only 89 hits. Jensen has played in 118 games since his big league career began, which was also in 1996 with the Giants. Jensen has struck out 86 times in 283 at-bats. Jensen also had the experience of playing on the 2000 gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic team.

Defensively, Mirabelli has thrown out 13 of 21 base runners this season. But Jensen is no slouch behind the plate, either. At Pawtucket this season he threw out seven of 19 potential base-stealers. In 2000, Jensen threw out 8 out 23 (34.8%) while with the Minnesota Twins, while Mirabelli gunned down 22 of 67 (32.8%) runners for San Francisco.

Allowed to start in Wednesday's 4-2 loss to the Marlins, Jensen went 1-for-4 and threw out the only runner that tried to swipe a base, National League stolen-base leader Luis Castillo. It was just the fourth time in 24 tries that the Marlin second baseman had been nabbed.

Jensen was praised after the game for his job behind the plate, which wasn't easy considering the starting pitcher was knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. "He did a great job of calling the game and he blocked a couple of balls," Wakefield said. The game marked the first time Jensen had ever caught a knuckleball.

Boston didn't part with prospects when Nomar Garciaparra went down with a wrist injury in spring training. Instead Craig Grebeck, Mike Lansing, Lou Merloni and John Valentin have all filled in at short, and when the trio of Grebeck, Merloni and Valentin were all placed on the DL within a week, the Red Sox stayed within the organization and called up Jon Shave from Pawtucket.

Adding Doug Mirabelli to a pitching staff that already leads all of baseball in ERA won't make that much of an impact. Scott Hatteberg and Co. will do a solid jump of replacing Vartiek defensively behind the plate, it's the offensive spark that Varitek provided that can't be matched. I don't think Mirabelli will help much there.