McClatchy Washington Bureau

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Two Texas Rangers prospects will participate in the Olympic Games.

Catcher Taylor Teagarden, who is at Triple A Oklahoma, was named to the U.S. Olympic team Wednesday, and Double A Frisco infielder Emerson Frostad will play for Canada.

"I've been looking at Teagarden for a while and he was high on our list," U.S. team manager Davey Johnson said. "He's a guy that can shut down the running game. I really liked what we saw defensively and that's a big part of winning a game."

Johnson was particularly impressed when Teagarden threw out his second runner in Sunday's Futures Game at Yankee Stadium. Teagarden blocked a 3-2 breaking ball, picked it out of the dirt and threw a strike to get Ivan DeJesus in the sixth inning.

The U.S. and Canada will play four exhibition games starting Aug. 1 in North Carolina before heading to Beijing. The U.S. opens its quest for gold against South Korea on Aug. 13.

Teagarden and Frostad will miss about a month of the season because of the Olympics, but the Rangers were willing to accommodate the players. Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said the biggest concern on letting prospects compete in the Olympics was whether the big-league team needed them.

Teagarden is next in line if the Rangers need a catcher with Gerald Laird on the disabled list. But Daniels said, "Laird is not far from returning, so we'll be three-deep with [Laird, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Max Ramirez] who have major league experience."

Team USA general manager Bob Watson talked about this being the final year of baseball as an Olympic sport.

"I think Major League Baseball and [the International Baseball Federation] are working diligently to have a system where our big leaguers can play in the Olympics," Watson said. "I think if Chicago or Tokyo would win the Olympics for 2016, I think those are baseball countries and would work together to get baseball back in. We feel baseball is going to get back in the Olympics."

Watson said one possibility would be to expand the MLB All-Star break to four or five, instead of three days, and play the games in that span.