A Pretty Dead Deadline

With all due respect to Matt Lawton and Geoff Blum, it was the most boring trading deadline in a few years. I think that works out better for Yankee despisers; Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon are not carrying this team to the playoffs.

Also, it was a weird weekend. The Junkees took two of three from the Angels, but lost a game in the standings. They probably should have lost Saturday, but were lucky to face K-Rod on a really bad day. And even though they won today, there was plenty of good news. After Johnson's last start against Minny, I got a little scared. Sure, the Twins' offense is terrible, but to give up just 2 hits and fan 12 is damn good no matter what. And when he started today with 5 K's in two innings, I thought it would be another vintage RJ start. Not quite. Johnson has now given up 23 HR on the year, and showed that he's still not consistent. Didn't think Shawn Chacon was gonna do better than he did.

With Moose getting a loss and RJ stinking it up, it was good to see the Yanks' big two do poorly. All we need now is for Small to get back down to earth, and Chacon, too.

-- As for the Embree deal, after the Sox dumped him, I had a hunch that the Yanks were gonna pick the guy up. After all, it would be quite the PR move to get an ex-Red Sox, to get one of the guys that helped bring on the choke last year. But then I thought, Cashman can't be that stupid. Embree had a 7.00 ERA and looked done. But apparently, Cashman was that stupid. Again, the Yanks are lucky that K-Rod had a huge off-night Saturday night. Otherwise, he might've been able to pitch Sunday and perhaps help the Halos to a sweep.

-- Series I'm looking forward to: Yanks-Toronto next weekend. The Jays have quietly pulled ahead of the O's, and swept the Angels last week. All without their ace, Roy Halladay. Sure, they lost a couple to Texas this weekend, but I thought they'd fall apart after Halladay got hurt. Glad I was wrong about that one.