After months of speculation, Roy Oswalt has finally been traded.

The winners of the disgruntled player sweepstakes were the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies, not the Cardinals, as had been rumored. As an aside, I’m not sure whether to be happy or sad about that for reasons Amanda stated here. It kind of would’ve been nice seeing the Cardinals raid an already weak farm system for this year. It sure would have set up the Reds nicely for the next few years.

But back to the trade. The Houston Astros sent Roy Oswalt, who waived his no-trade clause, to the Phillies for lefthander J.A. Happ, shortstop Jonathan Villar, and Anthony Gose, who was flipped to the Toronto Blue Jays for minor league first baseman Brett Wallace.

J. A. Happ was a runner-up in the rookie of the year voting last year, and looks to be a solid 3 or 4 starter in the Houston rotation. He’s no Oswalt, but he’ll be serviceable. According to the Crawfish Boxes, Jonathan Villar “has plus-plus speed coupled with a great arm. He has all of the tools to stick at shortstop and be a plus defender there, but needs to work on the skills aspect of his defense.” And Brett Wallace is one of the top first base prospects in the league. Which will be good for the NL Central, which is known for its shortage of awesome first basemen.

For the Reds, this trade means they will not face Roy Oswalt during the regular season again this year. The only way they would face him is if they made the playoffs. And with a first place lead 2 days shy of August, I’m feeling optimistic about the Reds’ chances.

Boxscore

Going into Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for first place of the National League Central. Thanks to the New York Mets and a great outing by knuckle-baller R.A. Dickey, the Reds are back in first.

A day after their extra-inning affair, the Cardinals’ offense played tired. They managed 4 hits and no runs. Albert Pujols played, despite being gimpy, and contributed nothing in what is shaping up to be the worst year of his career. (Of course, the vast majority of players would kill to have a year as “crappy” as Pujols is having. It’s nice having Joey Votto on the Reds.)

Blake Hawksworth wasn’t very good again in his start for St. Louis, getting his 7th loss. Over 6 innings, he allowed 4 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.

After storming out of the break with a 7-game winning streak, the Cardinals have now lost 2 series in a row.

Word on the street now is that the Cardinals are in contention to be the lucky recipients of the malcontented Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is in no position to demand a trade, being locked into a contract and whatnot, but he’s made a pain in the Astro of himself anyway, telling the world how he wants to be traded to a team who has a chance of winning.

Enter the Cardinals. They’ve had some rough patches with their starting pitching this season, but they aren’t willing to give up too much. Marty said on WLW today that they offered Brendan Ryan and a PTBNL for him, and I guess they don’t want to pick up his option, while they’re at it. Maybe the Cards see it as a favor they’re doing for Houston: taking the aging pitcher off their hands and their books.

But since, as I mentioned, Oswalt can bitch to the media all-the-live-long-day and the team doesn’t have to do squat about it, they’re unlikely to see the Cards’ point of view on that one.

Which is one reason why I like the idea of this trade: if it really goes through, the Cards are probably going to have to sacrifice some future talent to get there. The hit could last a lot longer than the bounce.

And speaking of the bounce, I’m not even sure how much altitude they’d get out of Oswalt. For years, he owned the Reds, but he’s pretty much been the sole property of the team lately. Unless Dave “pitcher whisperer” Duncan can turn back the clock, adding Oswalt to the rotation may just turn out to be a sure one-game gain for Cincinnati every time the teams meet.

On the flip side, Oswalt says he wants to go to a team with a chance to win. These days, the Cards always have a chance to win, but does this really look like the year? If they were that solid, they wouldn’t be looking to bring on pitching in the first place.

Ultimately, I think the only party that definitely benefits from this potential deal is Houston, assuming they don’t cave on the Ryan offer. Even if they do, though, he’d be taken off their hands.

I love waking up in the morning to find an alert on my phone that the Cardinals bullpen struck again and the team’s early lead evaporated at the last possible moment. St. Louis has had the worst luck this season–enough, I think, to call them snake-bit. It’s about time. This puts the Reds three games into the lead of the division and 12 games over .500. Those are some nice numbers.

The last-man voting for the All-Star Game ends today at 4 p.m. ET, which is a little more than five hours away. If the Twitter feeds are to be believed, there are some people who are really throwing their heart and soul into this vote. A surprising number of people have claimed to have voted “the maximum,” which apparently means they didn’t even go to the site before claiming to have thrown in their lot with Votto, since there is not limit on how many times you can vote in this contest.

That’s right, five hours of voting and no limit on what you, too, can contribute. Even with as slow as the site loads the verification codes, you can squeeze in about 400 votes per hour. You still have time to tack on a couple thousand votes! No lead is safe!

A couple hours after we get the news about whether our voting efforts have been fruitful, the Reds will take on the Phillies. Tonight game will be to take a shot for every line-drive that almost takes Ryan Howard’s head off.