Thursday Morning Hot Links

AL West Recap: The Astros won, and of course the Angels did too because Scioscia is actually a sorcerer. The Rangers won because the Rockies are useless, the A's won, as well. Only the Mariners lost. Despite this, the Astros playoff chances jumped from 65% to 70% on FanGraphs.

*Preston Tucker homered twice in last night's 4-2 win over the Red Sox. Tucker hit .183/.247/.328 from June 3 - July 1. But starting with the nine-game road trip on July 3 through last night? .321/.357/.604.

*Collin McHugh says the fans are the real MVP.
Honestly our fan base has been really, really supportive, really encouraging throughout the whole thing. And coming from New York, it's refreshing. It's refreshing to have fans who care about baseball and care about people, and you know, you can have both.

*McCullers will pitch tonight, then the rotation will be Feldman, Keuchel, Velasquez against Kansas City. Speaking of McCullers, Brent Strom said his breaking ball is "Kimbrel-like."

Trade Deadline Links

*Commissioner Rob Manfred is interested in pushing back the Trade Deadling, due to the extra Wild Card spot.

*The Astros are in on "every rental" player, according to Jayson Stark, checking in on Cueto, Samardzija, and Dan...this can't be right, yeah, I guess it is, Dan Haren.

*Susan Slusser says that Scott Kazmir may land in Houston.

*The Tigers won't decide if they're selling until after Sunday.

*Stark says the four likely destinations for Cole Hamels - if he's traded at all - are: Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, or Rangers.

*Jeff Luhnow used the A's as a cautionary tale to the New York Post's Joel Sherman:
We saw Oakland trade away pretty good players last year to win a division and they ended up getting eliminated in the wild-card game.

*Anthony Castrovince wants to see the Astros trade for David Price

Non-Astros link of the day

Rolling Stone: Meet the man who flies around the world for free

Haren gone, Roy next?

So it's been confirmed that Dan Haren has been traded to the Angels for Joe Saunders and three prospects, and I haven't seen anything regarding the Diamondbacks absorbing any of his salary.

A couple of things from this:

1. The Angels may not win the AL West this year, but thanks to Haren's existing contract, they're not content to hand the keys to the Rangers.

2. The good news is that Philadelphia (or the Yankees, Cardinals, Dodgers) didn't get Haren, but now that Haren's in the AL, it could impact the market for Roy.

3. Ted Lilly may get traded next, but Roy is pretty clearly the best pitcher on the market now.

And now back to our regularly scheduled Roy-mors

A couple of notes on Roy's status for this morning as he prepares to face the Reds tonight.

Smilin' Ken Rosenthal:
Yankees aren't in on Roy, but very much open to Dan Haren. This makes Roy not only not the bride or bridesmaid, but, like, the flower girl.

Jon Heyman:
The Yankees are willing to trade four prospects to Arizona, but won't eat Haren's contract or include Joba Chamberlain.

How does this affect the Astros? Since the Astros are looking for four prospects and salary relief, if the Yankees aren't willing to do it, I don't know who is. It comes down to which team is the most desperate.

Okay, Heyman later tweets that the Yankees would pay the remaining $33 million on Haren's contract, but don't want Chad Qualls and/or Chris Snyder.

Haren update

If you're a faithful reader of rumors, you probably know that Dan Haren is as attractive to teams as Roy is. And if Haren moves, that's another domino, and teams who were trying to decide between Roy and Haren will start to get desperate.

So Jon Heyman says that the Tigers, Phillies, Yankees, and Cardinals are said to be in on Haren, but the Tigers "could be" the favorite.