GRAND CENTER — Houston’s Michael Bourn just pulled off a theft on Yadier Molina by stealing second in the first inning there at Minute Maid Park. That allows for an elaboration on Rick Hummel’s note in this morning’s paper. In what was a P-D team effort, columnist Bernie Miklasz helped us research what it meant for Molina to get the 20th pick off of his career Sunday against Washington.

Since Molina became the everyday starter at catcher, here are the MLB leaders in pickoffs:

1. Yadier Molina … 19 (he had one as a backup)
2. Miguel Olivo … 12
3. Ivan Rodriguez … 9
4. Jose Molina … 8

More pronounced is the company Molina is keeping in the statistics available since 1987. As mentioned in the paper, Molina is the only catcher since ‘87 with 20 pick offs and fewer than 13 years in the majors. In the top nine, only three have fewer than 10 years in the majors, and two of them are Molina brothers:

1. Rodriguez … 81 … 18 years
2. Benito Santiago … 45 … 19 years
3. Mike Matheny … 26 … 13 years
4. Charile Oooooooooo’Brien … 23 … 14 years (Denver Zephyr, of course)
5. Javy Lopez … 20 … 15 years
6. Yadier Molina … 20 … 5 years
7. Olivo … 18 … 7 years
8. Brad Ausmus … 16 … 16 years
9. Jose Molina … 16 … 9 years

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Bourn was acquired from Philadelphia in the Brad Lidge trade to help replace the absence of Willy Taveras, who went to Colorado in one of the most lopsided trades in recent history. (Say, where is Jason Jennings? Oh, right.) Bourn is good buddies with another Houston-native outfielder — Cardinals’ High-A outfielder Daryl Jones. Jones was once considered a top-10 prospect for the Cardinals, and he’s got a chance at reclaiming that ranking this season. Check out his start:

.429 BA/.556 OBP/.571 SLG, 2 BB, 2 K, 6 Hits, 2 doubles

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