According to Troy Renck, last night's loss

will surely spawn a series of text messages and blogs about whether the team will shift from a buying to a selling mode.

Have at it. I mean, shouldn't we just feed the flame he just started? Buy or sell?--it's a simple question.

Anyway, that link also mentions that Cleveland has contacted the Rockies about sending Paul Byrd out west. His GB% this season is 36.3%. How does that play in Coors Field? Maybe he takes the Rockies a little farther away from that line of so-so to just plain bad fifth starters, but it wouldn't be far enough. Maybe that would be enough.

And look, Renck takes up his own sentiment about moving to a selling mode by suggesting another loss like last night's could have the Rockies reconsider holding onto Fuentes.

Again, have at it. Do the Rockies become buyers, sellers, or stay in neutral? Because we wouldn't want to disappoint Renck by not discussing this.

I'm going to do the Pebble Report later today after the game, as I woke up late this morning after our second glorious victory in a row. The team remains undefeated in regular season contests when I attend the last couple of years, I just wish that streak had carried over to the World Series. Anyway, I'm not sure where this new Rockies team came from, but I'm glad they showed up before coming out to the Midwest.

After a short rain delay caused by a storm that would have had difficulty filling a beer pitcher for all the liquid it contained, the game got underway. For a while there were two opposing forces at play, the first was good JDLR showing up, and when he's good, he's very good, and the second was the bad RISP Rockies team showing up and for awhile I thought I was seeing the same team that opened the season than the team I had seen Friday night. My Adam Dunn bobblehead was nodding in agreement, but it turns out Adam was wrong. The Rockies broke through for the lead and Good Jorge's performance held up for our second win in as many games in Cincinnati. Let's see if my streak can continue today with U-ball on the mound.

I've been tinkering with the idea of making the drive out to Pittsburgh for a game and follow the team around like some crazy astronaut stalker this week (gas prices being the biggest hold-up right now as it's not like I have much else to do) but I've been pretty certain that Mystery Starter Monday won't be the game I'm in Pittsburgh for. With news that it might be Jason Hirsh taking the hill, MSM suddenly becomes a more appealing game for me than watching Glendon Rusch on Tuesday.

While I'm on the subject of journeying to Pennsylvania, a trip to Philadelphia's newspapers this morning shows the Phillies are picking up Patrick Saunders articles for some reason. After clearing out much of their farm to acquire Joe Blanton, I don't think Philadelphia has the goods anymore to go after Brian, so I'm not exactly sure why they imported this piece from Denver, but it's there nonetheless. Meanwhile, Peter Gammons reports that the Cardinals are the faves right now to land Brian after the Marlins nixed giving up Anibal Sanchez plus a prospect.

So everybody was abuzz yesterday about the whispers that Roy Halladay might be available. Halladay is certainly in a camp of player that is worth giving up a lot of talent for. Everything seems to be pointing that the Jays will look more intensely at moving him during the winter, so there's time, but I just want to say that I certainly wouldn't mind if the Rockies were a little more in on those discussions than they were with Danny Haren this past offseason.

Tracy Ringolsby breaks down where each team is at in the trade deadline dance, and he brings up a good point that a lot of the apparent surprise by the rich contending teams about the small market clubs asking for too much boils down to the fact that they are shocked that there's actually some fiscal  forethought by clubs now. We have less than a week now to see if the Rockies actually make a move, but it's clear that there's no panic to just deal for the sake of unloading Fuentes' contract.

In fact, Jayson Stark quotes Dan O'Dowd as saying just that:

But no matter which way the Rockies' roller coaster veers in the next few days, GM Dan O'Dowd says nobody should expect him to blow up his team just because it's been a disappointment.

"We won't do that," O'Dowd told Rumblings, flatly. "And it has nothing to do with the standings."

Stark also notes that Garrett Atkins is off the market with Helton's injury and says that Willy Taveras will likely be moved. Fowler's ascension seems to be getting closer by the day.

For whatever reason, the most minute pressures of day to day living that most people seem to take with relative ease tend to get blown out of proportion for me. I'm not sure why my mind wants to make mountains of every menial molehill that crosses my path, but it's the way I operate for some reason. Seriously, something so simple as eating breakfast sometimes seems like a monumental achievement for me. The personality flaw is certainly not endearing to me, as it's made making a living more arduous than it should be and the carryover into my social life has made me one of the most reclusive people I know. Which really isn't saying much, since I'm so reclusive and don't really know a whole lot of people. 

For obvious reasons, I really don't like mentioning this aspect of my life as it's not the most flattering of traits. I bring this up because with my family in town last week, I got sort of overwhelmed with those issues and dug myself into my hermit shack for the last three days with the hopes that I could re-emerge by the time the Rockies come to town tomorrow. Happily, I think all systems are go. I finally got out and went grocery shopping yesterday and today I might even get my hair done.

Anyway, it also helps that the Rockies are once again in a Coors Field induced state of hopefulness, having gone 6-1 over the seven game stand. Fittingly, Brian Fuentes, in what could very well be his last game in Coors Field in a Rockies uniform, tied the franchise record for saves in the final game of that homestand.

What's more, however, this homestand showed a much more dangerous team than we've seen all season, with three wins in which we beat the Dodgers or Pirates better than five runs. We've had six such contests in July so far, with only ten combined in the other three months. A team pariah for the first two months in the season, Brad Hawpe's hitting .301/.400/.548 in July after ane even more sensational June. Jeff Baker really is proving himself an asset, Clint Hurdle is giving Chris Iannetta a greater majority of starts and Ian Stewart has hit safely in all five games since his most recent call-up. As Russ mentioned yesterday, Ubaldo Jimenez has been a revelation and our bullpen has been phenomenal this month.  While that bullpen's chemistry may be disrupted with a Fuentes trade, there's no doubt that we've got some legitimate quality parts in it right now. The team's issues, which early in the season seemed to numerous to count are basically down to just a couple of major concerns:

1. A recovery of Troy Tulowitzki
2. Finding a number three starter

That second one, despite Kip Wells's disaster of an outing in the fifth starter slot on Monday and the scariness of relying on Glendon Rusch to continue to walk the fine line he's been going at, or for Jorge de la Rosa to banish bad Jorge for good, really boils down to finding just one more quality starter among a pack of possibles and then as last season showed, you can sort of fudge quality with enough quantity in the other two slots.

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The latest leveraging by teams interested in Brain Fuentes to try and get the Rockies to back off their demands is to kick up rumors about interest in other directions. So you see stories of teams looking at George Sherrill instead, and saying that the Rockies are asking for too much. Meanwhile, included in that note is that the Rockies are scouting the Angels Nick Adenhart. It could just be a lot of last minute posturing by both sides. The Rockies want to be indicating that they have an Adenhart offerm other teams want to indicate that they have other options. Something's going down soon, that much is clear.

Yesterday's complete game may satiate Ubaldo Jimenez for awhile, but he's probably still starving to accomplish a shutout. The improvement he's made each month, however, is much more important. Just take a look:

As Clint Hurdle remarked, "He's growing up right before your eyes." It's unfortunate, though, that Jimenez can't grow another one of himself for Tuesday since it's a distinct possiblity that Kip Wells may, gulp, make that start against his old team, the Pirates. But if Ian Stewart brings his hot bat on the road with him, that will make things easier.

Woody Paige has no small task for Dealin' Dan: trade 10 players in order to keep Matt Holliday.One of those 10 players is Brian Fuentes, who's asking price has made teams shy away. Apparently, the Rockies are asking for Wade Hellickson from the Rays. I guess the Rockies are asking the Rays to do some surgery on Wade Davis and Jeremy Hellickson in order to combine them into one player.

Josh Fogg was hit in the face by a Joey Votto line drive during BP and received 30 stitches. He's still scheduled to start on Friday, for now.

The Rockies are about to finish a deal with Tyler Massey today, their 14th round draft pick. The story indicates his signing bonus will be close to what second rounders are getting this year, but this article from the RMN mentions a $400K signing bonus, just under what second rounders have received. Massey can play either first base or the outfield corners and will report to Casper after signing.

The second link above also mentions that the Yankees and Rays have scouts in town for the series against the Dodgers in order to see Brian Fuentes pitch. They'll want to watch him in close- and late-inning situations, but more games such as last night's and that won't happen.

At least we know Kip Wells won't be in the rotation for long:

"We're looking for somebody to help us solidify the starting rotation," manager Clint Hurdle said before the game.

"(Wells) is going to get the first shot at that. This is not going to be eight, 10 starts to figure it out. This needs to be something you come in, you embrace, you make pitches, you keep the ball down, you throw strikes and we'll go from there."

But then it's likely that anyone the Rockies plug into the rotation for Wells wouldn't be able to do what Hurdle wants him to do. Josh Towers? Franklin Morales again? Jason Hirsh? They're just as likely to fail in the rotation, but there's always Valerio De Los Santos.

Todd Helton says the Rockies don't want him hitting yet because they believe one swing could aggravate his injury again.

Chris Iannetta's genetically enhanced brain has apparently figured out how to defy the humidor, as his broken bat, two-run HR last night clearly demonstrates. Iannetta's bat and Ubaldo Jimenez's recovery from a shaky beginning led the Rockies to a victory in last night's game. Iannetta's tenth homerun on the season is the most by a Rockies catcher since Charles Johnson hit 13 in 2004, and CDI would need ten more to tie CJ's club record of twenty set in 2003.

Kip Wells is getting set to rejoin the Rockies rotation, with Mark redman moving to the bullpen. It's a lesser of a lot of evils choice. While I'll get to the Pebble Report a little later today, clearly we should be counting down the days to the arrival of Jhoulys Chacin, who improved to 4-0 at Modesto last night despite allowing twelve hits a nd four runs. He struck out eleven in the win.

Even as the Phillies would seem to be out of the Brian Fuentes derby with yesterday's deal for Joe Blanton, another team is reportedly added to the list of those interested. The Chicago Cubs are the latest entrant to this crowded field.

Russ answered more of Jessica Bader's questions at Take the Seven Train, unfortunately, due to an increased workload this week I wasn't able to participate this time around, so I want to offer an apology to Jessica.

Brian Fuentes will say that he'll play in New York.

Matt Holliday won't say that he'll play in New York.

It's only one game and Rox Girl is already suffering from NY media fatigue. That first Fuentes link is a little at odds with Ken Rosenthal's phone interview of Brian, where he seemed inclined to play on the West Coast if possible. Another Rosenthal article suggests that the Rockies still don't know if they're buyers or sellers, but goes on to mention the likely availability of Fuentes, the possible availability of Holliday or Atkins, and even adds Clint Barmes as a possibly available player. As much as I'd hate to lose the 2008 Clint Barmes, this definitely seems like a sell him while he's high point.

Yesterday's win over Ben Sheets at Milwaukee was welcome news, and a good sign that this road trip leading into the All-Star Break may turn out better than almost any of us could have imagined. Garrett Atkins' two homeruns were huge, obviously, but none bigger than the first one off Sheets that set the tone for the rest of the game. While no further ground was made up, unless you count the Giants, which I still don't, none was lost either, so the hope that we can wind up being the best of the worst seems to have remained in place. Today we rely on the arm of another former Brewer in Jorge de la Rosa to follow Glendon Rusch's lead in beating his former teammates.

Several draft picks tied up with the CWS have signed, including Kiel Roling, Stephen Dodson and Eric Wetzel.

Brian Fuentes remains the one Rockie most likely to be moved, but the words of Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak about not jumping in to "rentals" make it seem that his team is balking at where the bidding has gone, so we could probably scratch St Louis off the list of most likely destinations, despite Tony La Russa's pleadings for help with his bullpen. The Rays continue to make the most sense, as they have the surplus of talent and the greatest need.

Silverblood asked why Clint Barmes didn't start last night and here's the answer:

When asked why he didn't start the hot-hitting Clint Barmes at short, Hurdle praised Quintanilla's recent string of quality at-bats. Quintanilla promptly singled in the second inning.

Tampa Bay appears ready to make a serious run for Brian Fuentes' services. Mentioned in the article is that the Rockies have interest in two of the club's Double-A pitchers, Wade Davis and Jeremy Hellickson. Davis was rated the #4 prospect in the Rays' system back in January and Hellickson #8 by Baseball America. Davis has spent entire year with Double-A Montgomery in the Southern League. He's 8-6 in 18 starts with a 3.98 ERA and a 0.91 GO/AO. He has 75 K in 101 2/3 IP. Hellickson started the season with Vero Beach in the High-A Florida State League, going 7-1 in 14 games with a 2.00 ERA. He struck out 83 in 76 2/3 IP. He's 0-1 in two starts with Montgomery since his promotion. SaberScouting has a report on Hellickson.

Also of note in the article, Willy Taveras should return to the lineup on Monday.

Tulo should have his stitches out in 12 days.

Last night, the New York Post's website reported that Brandon Webb would be named the starter for the NL All-Star team and had the other starters. The story is no longer available. Find out today at 2 ET who makes the All-Star team when TBS makes the announcement.