MLB NETWORK TO AIR MORE THAN FIVE HOURS OF LIVE TRADE DEADLINE COVERAGE ON SATURDAY, JULY 31

Gammons, Hart, Heyman, Reynolds, Verducci & Others Part of Coverage Starting at 11:00 a.m. ET

MLB Network to Countdown the 40 Most Memorable Trades in MLB History at 6:00 p.m. ET

Secaucus, N.J., July 28, 2010 – MLB Network will provide more than five hours of live coverage of the MLB Trade Deadline on Saturday, July 31 from 11:00 a.m. ET until 4:30 p.m. ET. Greg Amsinger, Matt Vasgersian, Peter Gammons, John Hart, Jon Heyman, Joe Magrane, Dan Plesac, Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci will cover every move leading up to the 4:00 p.m. ET deadline. MLB.com senior writer Jonathan Mayo and MLB Network Insiders and sportswriters Phil Rogers, Richard Justice and Tracy Ringolsby will contribute analysis on-air throughout the day. Saturday’s coverage follows MLB Network’s hour-long Path to the Trade Deadline specials airing daily this week before MLB Tonight.

MLB Network will air MLB Network Countdown: The 40 Most Memorable Trades in MLB History, an hour-long show recapping the most influential trades that led to Hall of Fame careers, pennants, World Series titles and other significant franchise moments. Narrated by Vasgersian, the countdown includes: John Smoltz being traded by the Detroit Tigers to the Atlanta Braves in 1987, the New York Mets trading Hall of Famer Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, the Texas Rangers trading Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees for Alfonso Soriano in 2004, Hall of Famer Nellie Fox’s trade to the Chicago White Sox from the Philadelphia Athletics in 1949, and the Cincinnati Reds trading Hall of Famer and pitching great Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants in 1900.

Saturday Night Baseball at 7:00 p.m. ET will feature the AL first-place New York Yankees at division rival Tampa Bay Rays, with select television markets seeing the Oakland Athletics at Chicago White Sox at 7:00 p.m. ET. Immediately following the game, MLB Tonight will return live for one hour, while MLB Network’s Hazel Mae will recap the day’s game action on Quick Pitch at 11:00 p.m. ET.

For more information and to find MLB Network in your area, go to:

• www.MLBNetwork.com
• www.Facebook.com/MLBNetwork
• www.Twitter.com/MLBNetwork

After months of speculation, Roy Oswalt has finally been traded.

The winners of the disgruntled player sweepstakes were the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies, not the Cardinals, as had been rumored. As an aside, I’m not sure whether to be happy or sad about that for reasons Amanda stated here. It kind of would’ve been nice seeing the Cardinals raid an already weak farm system for this year. It sure would have set up the Reds nicely for the next few years.

But back to the trade. The Houston Astros sent Roy Oswalt, who waived his no-trade clause, to the Phillies for lefthander J.A. Happ, shortstop Jonathan Villar, and Anthony Gose, who was flipped to the Toronto Blue Jays for minor league first baseman Brett Wallace.

J. A. Happ was a runner-up in the rookie of the year voting last year, and looks to be a solid 3 or 4 starter in the Houston rotation. He’s no Oswalt, but he’ll be serviceable. According to the Crawfish Boxes, Jonathan Villar “has plus-plus speed coupled with a great arm. He has all of the tools to stick at shortstop and be a plus defender there, but needs to work on the skills aspect of his defense.” And Brett Wallace is one of the top first base prospects in the league. Which will be good for the NL Central, which is known for its shortage of awesome first basemen.

For the Reds, this trade means they will not face Roy Oswalt during the regular season again this year. The only way they would face him is if they made the playoffs. And with a first place lead 2 days shy of August, I’m feeling optimistic about the Reds’ chances.

Boxscore

Going into Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for first place of the National League Central. Thanks to the New York Mets and a great outing by knuckle-baller R.A. Dickey, the Reds are back in first.

A day after their extra-inning affair, the Cardinals’ offense played tired. They managed 4 hits and no runs. Albert Pujols played, despite being gimpy, and contributed nothing in what is shaping up to be the worst year of his career. (Of course, the vast majority of players would kill to have a year as “crappy” as Pujols is having. It’s nice having Joey Votto on the Reds.)

Blake Hawksworth wasn’t very good again in his start for St. Louis, getting his 7th loss. Over 6 innings, he allowed 4 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.

After storming out of the break with a 7-game winning streak, the Cardinals have now lost 2 series in a row.

Daniel Ray Herrera, the diminutive left handed reliever that the Reds have on assignment down in AAA Louisville right now, was arrested last night for public intoxication. From WLKY.com:

Police said Herrera, 25, was walking along northbound US 31 when he was stopped by Indiana State Police at 4:18 a.m.

ISP arrested Herrera and charged him with public intoxication. When he arrived at the Clark County Jail, his blood alcohol level tested at 0.228.

Herrera is due to be released from the Clark County Jail at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

It’s been a while since anyone in the Cincinnati has been in trouble with the law. Didn’t used to be that way. I remember Brian Shackelford’s arrest on a Milwaukee road trip, and of course, Ryan Freel gave us not one, but two mug shots. Comparatively, wandering up the highway in the wee morning hours seems only LaRussa-esque.

A few things that have been stacking up in my inbox, just waiting for a night when I’m too tired to write anything of my own. Thank you, other bloggers, for sharing!

Prospect Interview
Bus League Baseball interviews Blue Jays’ prospect Zach Stewart. If you’re like me, you have no recollection of who that is, and since the Reds aren’t mentioned in the story, reading it would be interesting but not helpful in making the connection. Fortunately, Brian, the author, reminded me that he was among the players the Reds traded for Scott Rolen.

Past Glory Meets Current Nerdiness
Remember the pretend 1977 Reds team I was “managing” this season? And, by managing, I mean seeing some of the best players of the era get screwed over by unlucky rolls of the dice and losing interest in the whole thing. Well, apparently the dice have been in their favor lately, and they’ve been on a bit of a tear. Check out the write-up, if you’re as interested in imaginary past glory as the current real-life glory of the team right now.

Around the Sphere
Not that I have nearly the time to read other blogs that I want to have, but I did take a moment to check out Reds Country and was well impressed. I hope you have an little time to give it a look. I also has an email from back in March announcing another baseball blog, but I spared you that one, because my standards for the blogs I’ll link to are rigorous: 1) you must know how to use paragraphs, and 2) you must post more than once ever.

Call for our Prospectus
Moving on to the sort of crap only a baseball fan MBA could come up with (ahem), SeatGeek.com is a “website that forecasts how sports and concert ticket prices move on the secondary ticket market.” This may be as good a market to invest your retirement fund in as any. Read the report, but remember that every opportunity has risks.

Else
And that’s about everything in the inbox, except for a book excerpt I’ve been meaning to look at for four months, SEVERAL poorly punctuated messages from PayPal to let me know that my account has been locked and that I need to fill out an attached form with all my personal information in order to access it again, and a surprising number of Canadian pharmacies want to sell me Viagra. How did they even know I was in the market?

Earlier this month, Sports Illustrated published the results of a player poll in which Gary Matthews Jr. was voted among the most overrated players in the league.

I’m not sure whether this was the same poll that voted Joey Votto the MVP for the first half of the season, but at least this Gary Matthews Jr thing the Reds agreed with. They had given the guy a minor league contract with an opt-out provision for him if he wasn’t called up by Saturday.

But whom would they have taken off the active roster for him? Jonny Gomes ain’t goin’ nowhere. Jay Bruce, Laynce Nix, and Chris Heisey have made themselves welcome characters on the Cincinnati stage. Even Drew Stubbs–who hasn’t exactly been outperforming Mr. Matthews so far–has enough potential in the possibility he’ll learn to lay down a bunt for a base hit to hold onto his roster spot over the overrated Matthews.

So, as of Saturday, Matthews opted out of the contract with the Reds organization and is now available to be hired by a team near you. Surely someone needs an outfielder. The Yankees are always hiring overrated players; maybe they’ll be able to hook up.

The first 30,000 people through the gates this Saturday, July 31 to see the Reds take on the Atlanta Braves will take home this lovely Homer Bailey bobblehead, or, at least, will have the opportunity to sell it to some guy with a big bag who wanders around offering up $10 or something.

In case you haven’t been watching the television broadcast for the last two weeks to hear them say it 30,000 times, the game start time has been changed. Even if you have your tickets in hand and see a different time on them, know that this game starts at 4:10 p.m. If you want to be among the first 30,000, you’ll want to be heading over there shortly after lunch.

Word on the street now is that the Cardinals are in contention to be the lucky recipients of the malcontented Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is in no position to demand a trade, being locked into a contract and whatnot, but he’s made a pain in the Astro of himself anyway, telling the world how he wants to be traded to a team who has a chance of winning.

Enter the Cardinals. They’ve had some rough patches with their starting pitching this season, but they aren’t willing to give up too much. Marty said on WLW today that they offered Brendan Ryan and a PTBNL for him, and I guess they don’t want to pick up his option, while they’re at it. Maybe the Cards see it as a favor they’re doing for Houston: taking the aging pitcher off their hands and their books.

But since, as I mentioned, Oswalt can bitch to the media all-the-live-long-day and the team doesn’t have to do squat about it, they’re unlikely to see the Cards’ point of view on that one.

Which is one reason why I like the idea of this trade: if it really goes through, the Cards are probably going to have to sacrifice some future talent to get there. The hit could last a lot longer than the bounce.

And speaking of the bounce, I’m not even sure how much altitude they’d get out of Oswalt. For years, he owned the Reds, but he’s pretty much been the sole property of the team lately. Unless Dave “pitcher whisperer” Duncan can turn back the clock, adding Oswalt to the rotation may just turn out to be a sure one-game gain for Cincinnati every time the teams meet.

On the flip side, Oswalt says he wants to go to a team with a chance to win. These days, the Cards always have a chance to win, but does this really look like the year? If they were that solid, they wouldn’t be looking to bring on pitching in the first place.

Ultimately, I think the only party that definitely benefits from this potential deal is Houston, assuming they don’t cave on the Ryan offer. Even if they do, though, he’d be taken off their hands.

The Cincinnati Reds destroyed the Houston Astros last night, behind another amazing performance by Johnny Cueto. Cueto moved his record to 10-2, giving the Reds two 10-game winners.

There was some concern that Cueto wouldn’t be able to make the start, since he was suffering from tonsilitis, but the 8 shutout innings showed that no bacterial infection can slow him down. (Although I suppose the antibiotics helped a bit, too.) In his 8 innings, Cueto struck out 6, walked 1, and allowed 4 hits.

He was over 100 pitches at the end of the 7th, but was sent out for the 8th anyway. And I have no problem with that. A starting pitcher should be able to throw 120 pitches every now and then, and Cueto’s been in the majors long enough that his endurance should be up. It might have been better to do it on a night when he wasn’t already sick, but the results are impressive.

Now, having dispatched the former Red-killer Roy Oswalt, the Reds turn to Wandy Rodriguez today at 2:05pm EDT. Mike Leake goes for the sweep for the Reds.

The closer who caused no end of stress for our friends down in St. Louis is now a member of the Cincinnati Reds minor league system:

CINCINNATI — Two days after they watched free-agent right-hander Jason Isringhausen throw in a bullpen session at Great American Ball Park, the Reds agreed to terms with the reliever on a Minor League contract Thursday.

Isringhausen will meet Triple-A Louisville at Gwinnett and officially sign his contract. It will likely take him at least a couple of weeks for him to get big league-ready. The 37-year-old hasn’t pitched in the Majors since June 2009 for the Rays before his right elbow blew out and required Tommy John surgery.

After the last couple games, it looks to me like he’d be an improvement over some of the people we’re sending out there. Of course, if the reason Bill Bray can’t get an out is because he goes so long between outings, the adding another pitcher to the mix isn’t going to help.