{"id":1312285,"date":"2019-07-10T15:48:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T21:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/trade-deadline-looms-as-baseball-resumes-after-break\/"},"modified":"2019-07-10T15:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T21:48:01","slug":"trade-deadline-looms-as-baseball-resumes-after-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/trade-deadline-looms-as-baseball-resumes-after-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade deadline looms as baseball resumes after break"},"content":{"rendered":"
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American League’s Joey Gallo, left, of the Texas Rangers, is congratulated by American League teammate Francisco Lindor, of the Cleveland Indians, after Gallo hit a solo home run during the seventh inning of the MLB baseball All-Star Game, Tuesday, July 9, 2019, in Cleveland. (AP Photo\/John Minchillo)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

CHICAGO \u2014 Francisco Lindor and the Cleveland Indians, looking up at Nelson Cruz and the surprising Minnesota Twins. Matt Chapman and the Oakland Athletics, trying to run down Jose Altuve and the Houston Astros. Max Scherzer and the Washington Nationals, chasing Ronald Acuna Jr. and the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n

Baseball ramps up again this weekend, and a handful of contenders have a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

Five of the majors\u2019 six divisions feature deficits of at least 5\u00bd games as play resumes after the All-Star Game, in which the American League beat the National League 4-3 Tuesday night. Life is pretty good for two iconic franchises, with Cody Bellinger and the Los Angeles Dodgers in control of the NL West again and Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees looking down on the rest of the AL East despite a rash of injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team is capable of some great things,\u201d Yankees pitcher James Paxton said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got some really talented players here, guys with a lot of drive, great leadership. We\u2019re set up really well to make a good run the second half here as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one exception at the moment is the crazy NL Central, where the Chicago Cubs have a 4\u00bd-game advantage \u2014 over last-place Cincinnati. Yup, that\u2019s right, it\u2019s just 4\u00bd games from top to bottom, with Christian Yelich and Milwaukee a half-game back of Javier Baez and the inconsistent Cubbies.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody really wants to run away with it,\u201d Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong said. \u201cThat gives us confidence as a group to think that we can run away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sets up for some very tough decisions ahead of the trade deadline after trade waivers were eliminated in the offseason, meaning no player can be traded after July 31 through the end of the regular season. Players who clear outright waivers can still be claimed and will be eligible for the postseason if they are in the organization before Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

Buying or selling will be one tricky call for several teams, all the way to the final days of July. The hard deadline also could affect the prices for some of the top players on the market, possibilities like San Francisco pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith, Toronto right-hander Marcus Stroman and Detroit lefty Matthew Boyd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know something could happen, but I don\u2019t take a peek at what people are saying,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much out there, and you don\u2019t know what\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland could inject some drama into the AL Central as soon as this weekend, when Minnesota comes to town for a three-game series. The Indians hit the All-Star break with the majors\u2019 longest active win streak at six in a row, improving to 21-6 since June 1 and moving within 5\u00bd games of the division-leading Twins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning it seemed like we were good, then all of a sudden in May we had that stretch where we weren\u2019t playing as good as we wanted to play,\u201d Lindor said. \u201cBut right now, we continue to play the game right and we\u2019re enjoying it, we\u2019re all having fun. We all get along, we love each other, we back each other up. We\u2019re having a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington also is having some fun again, moving into position to shake up the NL East after a terrible start to the season . Led by a resurgent Scherzer, the Nationals have won 15 of 19 to pull within six games of the division-leading Braves.<\/p>\n

Washington plays Atlanta 14 times in the last half of the season, including seven games in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we can go out there and play our best baseball and play mistake-free baseball, we\u2019re a tough team and we can compete with anybody in this league,\u201d Scherzer said.<\/p>\n

The Nationals have seven players with at least 11 homers, led by Anthony Rendon with 20. But everyone is going deep these days.<\/p>\n

Beginning with Thursday night\u2019s Astros-Rangers game in Arlington, the game\u2019s top sluggers resume their assault on an array of home run records. Yelich leads the way with 31 so far, putting together an appropriate encore to his NL MVP performance a year ago.<\/p>\n

The majors are on pace for 6,668 homers, which would smash the record 6,105 hit in 2017, and the real heat of the summer, when hits pick up, is only just beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys are working year in and year out on their swings,\u201d Pittsburgh first baseman Josh Bell said during the All-Star break. \u201cWe\u2019re just focused on trying to put a show on for you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show is on once again.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American League’s Joey Gallo, left, of the Texas Rangers, is congratulated by American League teammate Francisco Lindor, of the Cleveland Indians, after Gallo hit a solo home run during the seventh inning of the MLB baseball All-Star Game, Tuesday, July 9, 2019, in Cleveland. (AP Photo\/John Minchillo)AP | AP CHICAGO \u2014 Francisco Lindor and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 11:17:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}