Friday Night Lights

Matt Holliday makes a great first impression on his new team. Holliday helped the Cardinals to an eight to one win over the National League East leading Philadelphia Phillies. The newly acquired outfielder went four for five with an RBI. Joel Piniero continued his renaissance year for the victory.

The Yankees ran their win streak to eight games in a row with a win over the Oakland A's at Yankee Stadium. Bombers starter Joba Chamberlain went seven innings giving up just one run on two hits. New York remained two and a half up on the Red Sox for first place in the AL East. (It looks like NY's win streak is about to come to an end as Oakland is up six to one in the seventh inning)

Boston got a much needed qualty start from Brad Penny in a three to one win over Baltimore. The win stopped the Red Sox's five game losing streak. Penny went six and a third giving up five hits and an unearned run.

News from MLB.com about the Roy Halladay saga. Apparently JP Ricciardi is reaching for the stars, asking Philadelphia for JA Happ AND Kyle Drabek along with outfield prospect Dominic Brown. As I have said from the beginning, I really think Ricciardi has made this into a much bigger circus than it ever needed to be. If he holds onto Halladay through the trade deadline, he will severly diminish his trade value in the off season. I, for one, still believe Toronto could make a solid run next year if their starting rotation is healthy. If I were Ricciardi, I would be concentrating on trying to convince someone to take Vernon Wells or Alex Rios off my hands.

Speaking of Halladay, he made a brilliant start last night against the Tampa Bay Rays only to come up with a no decision. Halladay went nine innings giving up two runs on four hits while striking out ten. The Blue Jays ace was matched by Tampa Bay started Matt Garza who also went nine innings giving up two runs on five hits while striking out nine. The Rays sit six and a half games back of New York for first place in the AL East.

Apparently the Tigers are interested in disgruntled Cub outfield Milton Bradley. I caught this link on MLBTRADERUMORS. David Kaplan of ChicagoNow.com says this rumor has some legs. I wonder if the Tigers just miss Gary Sheffield so much that they want to go get the most cantankerous player in baseball. The Tigers are playing some good baseball and just got Jose Guillien back from the DL to help out Marcus Thames at DH. According to Kaplan, the deal would depend on how much of the contract the Cubs were willing to eat. This would be "addition by subtraction" for Lou Pinella and Chicago. (Always love using that phrase)

We are less than a week out from the deadline so it will be fun to keep track of all the rumors that start sprouting up. Look for the Mets to put their entire roster out there... not that anyone wants any of the active players.

Mike Hampton homered off of Johan Santana last night as the Astros beat the Mets five to four in Houston. Can it get any worse for New York that to have Mr. Hampton be the one to kick you while you are down? Bill Madden of the New York Daily News believes its time to complete overhaul the Mets roster. That starts with Omar Minaya according to Mr. Madden.