About Schmidt...

Jason Schmidt has a happy return to the Dodgers rotation. Los Angeles beat the Reds seven to five to give Schmidt his first win of the season. Schmidt is due back on the disabled list in... about... three weeks. Good luck to him.

Not that being Jason Schmidt is all bad... he has made just seven starts since signing his three year deal with the Dodgers. If he were to sit out the rest of that contract, with let's say ... an injury... he would have made almost seven million dollars a start. Good work if you can get it.

Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated (and of a certain TV network I might want to work for) is reporting the Mets were approached by the Blue Jays on Roy Halladay. The report says that Toronto asked for Bobby Parnell, Jon Neise, Fernando Martinez, and shortstop prospect Ruben Tejada and the Mets responded "with a resounding no." I don't buy for one minute this was an actual trade discussion. I have a feeling that there may have been a preliminary talk between the two clubs during the All Star break, but when hearing what it MIGHT take to get Halladay the Mets said "thanks, but no thanks" and stepped away from the table. I still believe JP Riccardi has backed himself into a corner with this Halladay fiasco and will ultimately lose his job over it.

I still don't know how to handle Twitter as a source of information, but Keith Law of ESPN.com used his Twitter account to refute Jon Heyman's above report. Does anyone write articles anymore?

And though he supposedly heard otherwise, the NY Daily News is reporting that Omar Minaya may be on the hotseat.

The Yanks get a Thriller by Godzilla to beat the Orioles in the Bronx. For the third game in a row, the Bombers won two to one. This time they got a Hideki Matsui walk off home run off of a Jim Johnson offering in the bottom of the ninth for the margin of victory. Andy Pettitte bounced back after a poor outing before the All-Star break but took a no-decision. Phil Coke, Jose Molina, and Mark Teixiera combined for some nifty defense to keep the O's from surging ahead.

Since joining the Boston rotation, John Smoltz has struggled. The right hander looked good through five against the Texas Rangers last night, but faltered in the sixth. Smoltz gave up three home runs in the bottom frame, the last one ending his night. Texas used the five run inning to surge to a six to three win. The loss drops the Sox into a tie for first place with the surging Yankees.

Maybe Matt Holliday has some trade value after all. After a fairly ho-hum season in Oakland, Holliday turned on the offense last night, keying a major come back by the Athletics. Trailing twelve to two in the third inning, the A's came all the way back and then some, beating the Twins 14 to 13. Holliday put together a heck of a week last night, going four for five with two home runs (one a grand slam) and six RBI. The Twins got the rough end of a bad call at home.