We are reaching the home strech of the baseball season. Teams have been unloading players, and teams have been filling the holes that they have. The reds have pretty much completely re-worked their entire bullpen by getting a new closer in Eddie Guardardo from Seattle, and middle and late inning relievers. They had to lose once top prospect Austin Kearns and former All-Star Felipe Lopez to the Nationals for some relievers, with the big name being USA Team member during the World Baseball Classic Gary Majewski. Apparently Majewski had a sore shoulder and already had recieved a shot in it to relieve the pain, and is now on the DL. Obviously the Reds are mad at this because they were never told about his shoulder soreness.

On the flip side, teams that have little to no shot at moving onto the post season have unloaded some players. The Pirates got rid of a lot of their veteran players with their young player rebuilding movement. The Cubs trade Maddux and Walker now because they weren’t going to be resigned next season, so they go something for them. A couple of the Royals were moved around, but all and all it was a pretty uneventful trade deadline, and waiver trades thus far. The only big name that could be called a blockbuster trade was Carlos Lee going to the Rangers. There a lot of big name mentioned this trade deadline, but with many teams in the hunt for wild card and/or division titles a lot of teams are sticking to what they had, and filled a few holes.

You’re starting see a few players thinking of shutting down for the season and starting their rehab process early, to be completely ready for next season. Mark Prior just went back onto the DL, means 4/5th of the Cubs rotation is rookies right now. Richie Weeks is contemplating getting season ending surgery on his wrist. Some other players with some shoulder problems are almost to the shut down point as well.

All and all with the the tight races we have so far, I think we’re in store for a good last 5 or 6 weeks of the season.