How does Cliff Lee sound to you, Phillies fans?
No, he’s not Roy Halladay. But he did win the American League Cy Young Award last year. The left-hander is the ace of the Cleveland Indians staff, and he just might be the “big addition” GM Ruben Amaro Jr. uses to cement the Phils’ rotation.
That’s because Amaro’s talks with the Toronto Blue Jays aren’t going particularly well. None of which should probably be taken all that seriously.
This amounts to a big-time game of chicken. The Blue Jays will simply wait to see who blinks first, and wind up dealing with that team. They continue to seek both minor league phenom Kyle Drabek and solid starter J.A. Happ as the linchpins to any deal with the Phils. Amaro does not want to part with both of them. In particular the team seems loathe to jettison the promising Drabek.
So as something of a Plan B, Amaro is also talking with the Indians about Lee, who is 7-9 with a 3.14 ERA.
Don’t hyperventilate if nothing happens today, despite last week’s pronouncement from Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi that his deadline for making a deal was today.
The league deadline is 4 p.m. Friday. Expect to hear something about 3:55.
In the meantime, the beat goes on for the Phils. After some early-inning struggles, they got a solid outing last night from Jamie Moyer, another homer from Ryan Howard, and cruised to a 6-2 win over the Diamondbacks.
They now lead the NL East by a full seven games.
One other interesting note. After this set with Arizona, the Phils fly on to San Francisco for a weekend encounter with the Giants. As it turns out, the Blue Jays also are in town. They play in Oakland.
Both the Phillies and Blue Jays are staying in the same hotel.
Think maybe Amaro and Ricciardi might meet up in the hotel bar Thursday night?
Paul Owens would be proud.
No, he’s not Roy Halladay. But he did win the American League Cy Young Award last year. The left-hander is the ace of the Cleveland Indians staff, and he just might be the “big addition” GM Ruben Amaro Jr. uses to cement the Phils’ rotation.
That’s because Amaro’s talks with the Toronto Blue Jays aren’t going particularly well. None of which should probably be taken all that seriously.
This amounts to a big-time game of chicken. The Blue Jays will simply wait to see who blinks first, and wind up dealing with that team. They continue to seek both minor league phenom Kyle Drabek and solid starter J.A. Happ as the linchpins to any deal with the Phils. Amaro does not want to part with both of them. In particular the team seems loathe to jettison the promising Drabek.
So as something of a Plan B, Amaro is also talking with the Indians about Lee, who is 7-9 with a 3.14 ERA.
Don’t hyperventilate if nothing happens today, despite last week’s pronouncement from Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi that his deadline for making a deal was today.
The league deadline is 4 p.m. Friday. Expect to hear something about 3:55.
In the meantime, the beat goes on for the Phils. After some early-inning struggles, they got a solid outing last night from Jamie Moyer, another homer from Ryan Howard, and cruised to a 6-2 win over the Diamondbacks.
They now lead the NL East by a full seven games.
One other interesting note. After this set with Arizona, the Phils fly on to San Francisco for a weekend encounter with the Giants. As it turns out, the Blue Jays also are in town. They play in Oakland.
Both the Phillies and Blue Jays are staying in the same hotel.
Think maybe Amaro and Ricciardi might meet up in the hotel bar Thursday night?
Paul Owens would be proud.
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