Saturday afternoon

Kind of a lull in everything today. We've come to the point before the deadline where one of three things will happen, either Littlefield will cave and trade his guys for less than he wants (Mark Redman), someone else will panic and give Dave what he wants (Matt Lawton), or Littlefield will hold strong while no one panics, and we end up with Redman and Lawton for the rest of the year. All the talk of everthing else is being pushed aside for the Manny Ramirez trade talks, which people should probably just ignore because it'll never happen at this point due to the giant sums of money Manny is owed and the huge player cost Theo Epstein would require to move one of the best pure hitters of the last decade.

It also appears Matt Lawton has become the hottest target on our roster right now, with a lot of interest coming from the Cardinals and the Red Sox. And we should all join in Charlie's rejoice of being saved from Larry Bigbie. As for Redman, he would seem to be one of the best pitchers available now with Burnett off the market. Despite our seeming inactivity to this point, Buster Olney seems to think we're going to move some players. And there is a lot of speculation Redman won't even make it to the mound tonight.

I forgot this last night, but I hope Jay Powell is OK. That injury he had last night looked quite scary, like a Tom Browning, Tony Saunders, Dave Drivecky type thing, though it doesn't appear to be that serious.

And for all the Pittsburgh fans getting sick watching the Pirates flounder and of the incessant trade deadline rumors (because I'm sick of speculating myself, but it's all we have right now), smile a little bit, things aren't quite so bad.