Jayson Stark is reporting that the Toronto Blue Jays have formally proposed a trade with the Phillies involving ace, Roy Halladay. J.P. Ricciardi and the Jays would be willing to part with Halladay in exchange for J.A. Happ, Kyle Drabek and Dominic Brown. Apparently the Toronto pitcher’s body of work hasn’t shown enough to convince Ruben Amaro to part with Happ and 2 guys who’ve never played an inning of Major League ball.

Nor were the Phillies particularly impressed with Halladay’s outing last night against the Tampa Bay Rays, a team ranked 3rd in baseball in runs scored (only the Yankees and Angels have crossed the plate more). While Happ got shelled by the Cardinals, Halladay pitched 9 innings, giving up 4 hits and 1 earned run while walking 3 and striking out 10. Adding to the resume that’s printed on gold leaf, Halladay recorded his 44th complete game since 1998; Randy Johnson is the only other pitcher with that many complete games during the past 12 seasons.

The quote of the day on this matter was from an unnamed talent evaluator (presumably a Toronto guy) who Stark claims is involved in the Halladay proceedings:

The Phillies are going to have to step up if they want him. Happ is OK (as a prospect) and Drabek is a good prospect, but neither of these guys is ever going to be what Halladay is. They’re prospects, and Halladay is Halladay; he’s the best. If Happ and Drabek are not both in the deal, it’s not going to happen.

From a baseball perspective, that’s pretty much the whole story. The Phillies know Halladay is going to cost an arm and a leg and they’ve shown themselves to be quite willing to pass on big-time contracts in the past. Despite the ado surrounding last year’s championship as well as this year’s cake walk both fresh in fans’ minds, it’s important to remember that this team’s ownership junta hasn’t exactly shown themselves to come from the George Steinbrenner school of talent acquisition.

But money issues aside, there is no baseball reason not to make this trade. In terms of this season, Happ is the only player involved who would affect a World Series hunt and nobody can seriously argue that he’s be better for the Phillies run this year than Halladay. And ditto for next season as D. Brown will have no roster spot available to him and there’s no way Drabek comes in and has a rookie season anywhere comparable to what Halladay will produce.

Giving the Phillies the benefit of the doubt, the fact that they’re holding out for a better deal with a week to go until the deadline is just fine. It’s reported they’re trying to get Toronto to bite on Carlos Carrasco instead of Drabek. For my part, they can have Carrasco, Drabek and Happ as long as we get Halladay. Bottom line: the Phillies are the N.L. favorites this season and the next with Roy Halladay. Without him, they’re in the mix. And if you want to be stubborn and hold onto the prospects, let’s reconvene this conversation in 5 years.

I generally enjoy reading what Jayson Stark has to say and this week’s installment of Rumblings & Grumblings is no exception. Of particular pleasure is the fact that he devotes about 2/3 of the column space to the Phillies, which reminds me that they’ve “made it.” I’m also reminded that Stark uses shorter sentences than I do which is probably why he gets paid the big bucks while I sit in my red underwear in bed with my dog.

The general theme of Stark’s column is the trade deadline. With the Phillies and Roy Halladay obviously inspiring the topic, J.S. gives us the “The Five Biggest Myths About the Trading Deadline.” While most of his examples don’t directly have anything to do with the Phillies historically, the reader gets the idea that Stark is making the case against the Phillies trading away prospects and young talent for Halladay. One interesting fact in particular:

Over the past 32 years, exactly 3 pitchers who’ve changed teams in mid-season have won a World Series game: Joe Blanton (last year), Jeff Weaver for the 2006 Cardinals and Mike Torrez for the 1977 Yankees.

About the Phillies’ interest in trading for Roy Halladay in the midst of their hot streak:

A Phillies source told Rumblings (Stark) you can forget that talk that the Phillies might be less motivated to deal for Roy Halladay because they’re running away with the N.L. East. If anything, he said, the Phillies are now even more motivated. “The focus is now not just to get there (the post season),” he said. It’s to get there and keep going. Making the playoffs is not the goal. To win the whole thing is the goal.”

About the very-real prospect of the A.L. East boogeymen (Yankees, Red Sox and Rays) being the A.L. rep in the World Series:

The Phillies know there’s a good possibility they’ll have to face one of the three A.L. East pirahnas. And the Phillies just went 6-12–while allowing 5.5 runs per game–versus the A.L. East in interleague play. If you subtract the now-injured Brett Myers, the Phillies rotation went 3-7 with a 4.74 ERA in that stretch…And what’s Halladay’s career record against the A.L. East? How about 59-30? Don’t think the Phillies haven’t noticed that fun little stat.

Stark goes on to talk about J.A. Happ and Kyle Drabek, Dominic Brown and Michael Taylor and the fact that the Phils may be in the market for Orioles reliever, George Sherill as well as a right-handed bat (yawn). Finally, he related Jayson Werth’s idea that hitters would be more motivated to participate in the Home Run Derby if the winner were awarded a bag filled with $100 bills.

Well now that I’ve done little more than let Jayson Stark do all my work for me, I’ll leave you alone with these thoughts. Come to think of it, I could have done even less and simply posted the link to his article. But then the bikini pic would have made less sense. Or not.

Since the Phillies are currently romping the hapless Pirates behind another good performance from J. A. Happ and Josh Beckett’s bid for 100 wins is going swimmingly (he’s 1-hitting the Royals), I’m listening to the Cubs-Cardinals game. I’ve been rewarded for going outside my comfort zone by hearing the call of Carlos Zambrano’s home run. And as I’m writing this, the dreamy Albert Pujols has made 6 unassisted outs through 6 innings. Here are some other facts that will make you a better person.

• With the addition of Jayson Werth to the N.L. All-Star lineup, the Phillies will be sending 5 players to the Midsummer Classic. Looks like A.L. and Tampa Bay manager, Joe Madden, has made an addition of his own by replacing the unable-to-attend Dustin Pedroia with A.L. home run leader, Carlos Pena. This move means that the entire Tampa Bay starting infield will be on the American League roster, impressive when you consider they lost stud 2nd baseman, Awinori Iwamura, early in the season to injury.
• Jimmy Rollins walked 16 times in his first 69 games this season. In the first 11 games of July, he’s walked 10 times and is hitting .380 this month.
• J.A. Happ has given up 4 hits and 1 run through 7 today against the Pirates. His K-BB ratio has improved to 2-1 and his ERA has lowered to 2.90. On his way to his 6th win (against no losses) and 4th-consecutive outing logging at least7 innings, Happ may be a candidate for N.L. Rookie of the Year according to Johnny Goodtimes.
• ESPN Insider is reporting that the Brewers may have thrown their hats in the Roy Halladay ring. If true and the interest is serious, this could be a problem for the Phils. The Brewers showed last year they’re willing to mortgage the house (if even for half a season) to get a top-notch pitcher (C. C. Sabathia); I’m not sure the Phillies have ever made a mid-season move that big.

Lost in last night’s 22-1 drubbing of the Cincinnati Reds was the great performance of Cole Hamels (on the mound specifically, not at the plate). Hamels’ line looked like this: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB and only 92 pitches. More importantly, Phillies’ starters have recorded wins in each game of the current 4-game streak.

22-run games are fun but they’re few and far between. Seeing the rotation go out and pitch solid games that translate to wins is encouraging and bodes well for booking reservations in the fall. If J.A. Happ can win tonight, it will be the first time this season the starters have gone through the rotation with 5 consecutive wins.

Unlike yesterday, we’re feeling good about the Phillies so I’m going to throw this potential catch at you from sportingnews.com: “Blue Jays More Open to Offers for Halladay.” I would be unopposed to any reasonable scenario by which the Phillies obtain Halladay by trade. He is arguably the best pitcher in baseball and possesses great career ERAs against this year’s likely contenders: 4.46 against Boston, 1.50 against the Dodgers, 2.90 against the Yankees, 1.00 against St. Louis, 3.72 against Tampa, 2.19 against the Tigers, 4.32 against the Angels and 2.45 against the Phillies. The fact that Toronto is 2 games over .500 and still willing to listen to offers for their best pitcher tells us this is a salary move and open to any team willing to offer the goods. Hell, I’m just saying…

Apparently J.C. Romero doesn’t appreciate dumb-ass comments from mindless Floridians. According to Tampa police, Romero was signing autographs outside Tropicana Field Thursday night when Rays fan, Robert Eaton, solicited him for his Hancock. When Romero passed him over, Eaton said something about steroids at which point Romero told him to “shut the fuck up.” J.C. then proceeded to grab Eaton by the neck and choked him like Tim Tebow will choke in the NFL draft.

Nobody fucks with J.C. Romero (except Bud Selig). I like the fact that Romero did like any reliever worth his salt would do: he went right for the throat. Here’s to hoping Brad Lidge will follow suit.

Brad Lidge will be activated for tonight’s game against Tampa Bay and to make room on the roster, Sergio Escalona has been sent back to Lehigh Valley. I’m not going to suggest Escalona is the next Dennis Eckersley, but this is a signature Rich Dubee/Charlie Manuel mishandling of relief pitching (both from a personnel and in-game perspective), especially when you consider another left-handed arm that is still in the Phillies’ pen: Jack Taschner.

I’m not going to pretend to understand what goes through the Phillies’ braintrust’s minds when making consistently awful bullpen moves. It worked last year because Brad Lidge was perfect; even I could have figured that out on a sober day. But why keep Jack Trashner around and send down a young gun who’s looked good so far this year? Take a look at the comparative numbers (keep in mind neither Dubee, Amaro nor Manuel have access to this highly-sensitive data so maybe I’m being too harsh):

• Escalona: 1-0, 3.38. His strikeout to walk ratio is 1.5. He has a 1.13 WHIP and a batting average against of .211
• Trashner: 1-1, 5.26. His K/BB ratio is .78. His WHIP is 1.87 and his BAA is .297.

It seems that everyone is in creaming-the-jeans mode after the Phillies’ 10-1 win last night over Tampa Bay. Eric Young says the Phillies have “nothing to worry about” on the Baseball Tonight Clubhouse. Andy Martino at the Inky said “the team instantly looked like contenders again.” As for me, I’ve already ordered a Carvel ice cream cake and extra candles.

There’s nothing like a lopsided win to reassure fans that the ship is righted. In reality, let’s give it a few days, look at 3 or 4 pitching starts and see whether the bats can stay productive. After all, the Phillies put up all 10 of their runs against David Price, who hasn’t exactly been good recently: he’s given up 15 earned runs in his last 11.1 innings pitched and hasn’t won since May 30.

While holding our horses we can still take some positives out of this game. Jamie Moyer, for one, seems to have found a pretty good rhythm. He’s now lasted at least 6 innings in his last 6 starts and only allowed more than 4 runs during that stretch once. This was the recipe for his success last year, the 6 innings, 3 runs line. If Moyer can keep the team in games and let the bullpen rest until the 7th inning, his starts should translate into wins; they’d better since the Phillies are 1-22 in games this year when they’ve scored 3 or fewer runs.

We’ll know a little more about the ressurection of the World Champs after tonight when Joe Blanton faces Matt Garza. Obviously, the Phillies like playing the Rays. And for all the talk about Yankee Stadium being the home run playground, Tropicana Field is the only park in the majors that has surrendered at least one homer every game this season, a fact that should have the offense licking its lips.

The good news for Phillies fans is that their team will begin a 9-game road trip tonight in St. Petersburg, Florida as they take-on the Tampa Bay Rays. There are three reasons the Phils should feel right at home there: 1. pleasant memories of a Game 1, 3-2 win there last October on their way to winning the World Series, 2. the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area is their home for the month of March (and they can leave Jimmy Rollins with the Threshers if he has a bad series) and 3. anywhere but Citizen’s Bank Park seems like a good place for the Phils to play a baseball game.

The American League East is undoubtedly the best division in baseball and should be the barometer against which every team in baseball measures itself during the 2009 regular season. To demonstrate how bad the Phillies are playing, the 4th-place Rays have more wins (37) than the NL East-leading Phillies do (36). What’s more, the Phillies are 3-9 in interleague play (all against AL East teams) and have only won 1 of their last 9 games (all against AL East teams). To boot, their most-recent losses were 3 in a row against the AL East cellar dwellers, the Baltimore Orioles. To make the prospects for turning it around tonight even worse, the Rays are 8-4 this season in Interleague play (and are a 55% favorite according to AccuScore).

Of the upcoming series with his former team, Pat Burrell took a nice jab at the Phillies on mlb.com, saying “I haven’t really been following what’s been going on, but I don’t think the Phillies have been playing very well, so hopefully we can get a few games.” Despite his veiled ignorance of what he knows damned-well to be a dry stretch for his ex-teammates, Burrell and the Rays must be feeling confident and eager to get another crack at the Phillies. You’ve got to figure a healthy Evan Longoria feels exactly that, having gone 1 for 20 last October with 9 strikeouts.

If the Phillies are going to turn the first half of the season around, it’ll have to start tonight and rest on the left arm of Jamie Moyer. Despite the atmosphere surrounding last October’s rematch, in real time the World Series is becoming a distant memory. And if the Phillies have any hope of believing themselves capable of repeating, they’ll need to invoke their one strong suit so far this season: their 23-9 road record; Tampa Bay seems as good a place as any to call their home away from home.

After getting swept at home by the Blue Jays yesterday (amounting to their 8th series loss at home this season in 9 tries), the Phillies are 2-3 on the season against teams with birds as mascots (they won 2 in St. Louis back in May). In what has to be thought of as a pivotal series, the Baltimore Orioles will be in town for a 3-game set beginning with tonight’s pitching matchup of Antonio Bastardo against Rich Hill (2.1, 5.81). If you’re interested in speeding-up the trade process for another starting pitcher, wish for Bastardo to have a bad outing as a poor performance by the fatherless one will surely be his last start in the bigs for a while.

Despite a team average of .252 against lefties (Hill is a southpaw), the Phillies top-8 hitters actually fare quite well against left-handers so look for the offense to try and jump on Hill early. A W in the first game of this series would make the prospect of winning it a lot more likely (of the 8 lost home series, they’ve won the first game only 3 times). Other left-handed news of note on this series: Happ will start Saturday against Brad Bergesen (4-2, 3.79 and Hamels on Sunday versus Jeremy Guthrie (4-7, 5.42).

For a team 8 games under .500 (29-37), the Orioles’ record is very indicative of how slightly-below average they are. On one hand, as the Phillies know, the AL East is the best division in baseball and the Orioles have suffered for it: they are 10-16 against their division. On the other hand, the Orioles have gone 9-11 in their past 20 games (all out of division) and that includes series against Detroit, Oakland, Seattle, Atlanta and the Mets, none of whom I would put in the list of top-10 teams in baseball.

The bottom line is that this is a very winnable series, in fact it’s a very sweepable series. The Phils will start their two best pitchers in Happ and Hamels this weekend, which should bode well. They are going to need to put their best face forward as the coming week holds two road series against the AL East (Tampa Bay and Toronto). Come to think of it, 2 of their 3 wins against the AL East came at Yankee Stadium so maybe a break from the friendly confines is just what they need. Screw that, they need to beat Baltimore down, Omar Little style.

Say what you want about interleague play but it’s a reality and the NL East vs. AL East is the best scheduling matchup possible for the Phillies. Having recently returned to the pantheon of elite East Coast baseball, the Phillies deserve to be sharing the national stage against the Yankees and Red Sox. Add last year’s World Series rematch to the mix (Tampa Bay) and the opportunity to revisit the loss in the 1993 World Series to Toronto and the Phillies interleague schedule looks real juicy (plus Baltimore, just to keep sales of The Wire high in Philly).

Because the Phils exorcised the demons of 1993 by winning last season, it’s safe to take a look back on the last back-to-back World Series winners since the ‘77-’78 Yankees, the 1992-’93 Toronto Blue Jays. Tsn.ca has a pretty good article from last week about the construction of those teams (Pat Gillick was GM) and going through some of the players on those squads, it’s no wonder they were as good as they were. One great fact mentioned was that in 1993, Toronto hitters finished 1-2-3 in the AL hitting standings: John Olerud (.363), Paul Molitor (.332) and Roberto Alomar (.326). That quality of hitting at the top of the order was good for 847 runs on the season. By comparison (and to end this post on a positive note), the 2009 Phillies are on pace to score 936 runs.