The Braves traded Mark Teixeira to the Los Angeles Angels Tuesday in exchange for first baseman Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek.

Supposedly an exceptional defensive first baseman, Kotchman is batting .287 with 12 home runs and 54 RBIs. The right-handed Marek is with the Angels’ AA affiliate in Arkansas.

Do you think that the Braves got enough for Teixeira, who is batting .283 with 20 home runs and 78 RBIs?

While it’s not an even swap, we would’ve lost Text anyway in a few months. We’ll have a younger Kotchman for the next three years at a cheaper price, hopefully allowing for us to pick up some big free agent outfielders in the off-season.

I’m thinking 6-6 unless there is a surprise or two and they finish at 7-5.  

I’m hoping that they do re-sign both of them. Initially, there was a lot of interest for Smith, but some of the primary teams that were looking at him made moves for other players, so it lwould seem like we have a good chance at keeping him here. Not much has been said about Childress and the free agent market. I wonder how much interest is out there for him?

I think a lot will depend on how the team does over the next ten days. They have series vs. Washington, Florida and Philly. If they can win all three series and get back to within five games of the lead, then I don’t think that they’ll trade him. However, if we lose 2 of 3 to the Marlins and Phillies, then we’ll definitely be sending Tex on his way.

I don’t think we’ll trade him because I think that Frank Wren is under the illusion that the team is on the verge of getting healthy.

On our last night in DC, my family, one of my co-workers and I headed out to Nationals Park to see the Nats take on the visiting D’Backs. The stadium just opened this season, so I was looking forward to seeing how it compares to some of the other new parks. We took the Metro train to the game, about a twenty minute ride from our hotel. When you walk out of the station, you immediately see the outfield entrance to the Park, about a one block walk. We bought tickets at the box office and headed up to our seats. We bought the cheap seats and were on the very top row of the stadium. Even though we were somewhat high up, the breeze was nice and the view of the field and of downtown DC wasn’t bad at all. Most of the other tickets were really expensive, including the majority of the seats in the upper deck. I think this would partially explain why they only average 29K (the stadium seats 41K) in the stadium’s first year. Of course, the fact that they’re in last place doesn’t help either.  

 The stadium itself was nice, but i’ve been more impressed by some of the other newer parks. There are several tiers to the stadium, most of which don’t extend all around the stadium. It gave an uneven appearance to the stadium’s interior, something that I didn’t particular care for. It also prevented me from taking a lap around the upper level. You can walk the lowel level and that was much better as you could see the game from the top of the sections, just like Turner Field.

They have a lot of variety of foods, but everything was absurdly expensive. We brought some food for Olivia, but we weren’t sure if you were allowed to bring in food, so we didn’t and paid a ridiculous $29 for three hot dogs, nachos and a drink.

The game itself was a classic pitcher’s duel. Dan Haren pitched for the D’Backs and threw a gem. He only allowed 2 hits through eight innings and looked to be on his way to a 2-0 shutout. However, he allowed two baserunners  in the 9th and Lyons came on to save it. He allowed both runners to score and the game went to extra innings. The D’Backs scored three runs in the 10th to make the score 5-2. The Nats battled back to score three runs in the bottom of the inning to tie it again at 5-5. The D’Backs scored two more in the top of the 11th and the Nats couldn’t muster up another rally to tie it up for a third time.

Overall, it was a positive experience and we had a good time, even if it was more expensive that anticipated.

I had to go to DC all week for a training; the family came up as well to see the sights. Our favorite Soccer team, Chicago Fire, advanced the previous week in the US Open Cup and were paired up to play DC United on Tuesday, a perfect coincidence for us. Since it was a an Open Cup game and not an MLS Match, the game was not played at RFK and was instead held at the Maryland Soccerplex in Germantown, MD. We rented a car and headed out there for the match.

The Soccerplex was a nice little venue with a main stadium that held roughly 4,000 people. We got there too late to grab seats, so we had to sit on a grass hill behind one of the goals. It was not a bad view at all and we were able to see a lot of action sitting right behind the goal.  

The Fire dominated the first half and scored first in the 36th minute on a long ball over the top to reserve midfielder Daniel Woolard. The Fire had been successfully chipping balls over the top the whole half and the strategy finally paid off. A few minutes later, another long ball dropped in to Chris Rolfe to give him a one-on-one with the ‘keeper, but it was poorly struck right at the goalie and the first half ended 1-0. This miss would prove to be costly.

Unfortunately for the Fire, the second half was dominated by DC. United brought on Jaime Moreno in the 60th minute and he basically took over. About 15 minutes later, he stole a ball from a Fire defender and immediately crossed it into the box where an unmarked DC midfielder was waiting to tap it in. The score remained 1-1 for the rest of the half, but it was obvious that DC was on its way to victory unless something changed in the momentum.

In OT, Chicago brought on Cuautemoc Blanco to hopefully change the Fire’s fortunes. However, DC continued to control the game and scored off a corner from Moreno to Bryan Namoff in the 99th minute. The Fire found themselves down 2-1 with 21 minutes left in OT.

Blanco lasted all of 20 minutes as he got into a fight with Clyde Sims and punched him in the stomach. He and another player from DC that got involved in a scuffle were red-carded. Apparently, Blanco also got into the altercation with a DC employee as he was leaving the pitch. Not a good night for Blanco.

The game  ended 2-1, ending Chicago’s dominance of DC and also their run at a fifth Open Cup title in 11 years. This year’s team has blown a lot of one goal leads and this game followed that same pattern. If they are going to win the MLS Championship this season, they’re going to have to figure out a way to either score more goals to increase their leads or figure out how to successfully defend a one-goal lead late in games.

Funniest moment of the night: Chicago’s Goalkeeper is named Jon Busch. A DC fan behind his goal was razzing him all night, but the most clever line he threw out was “Hey Busch, you’re the worst President ever”. Everyone got quite a chuckle out of that one.

There’s quite a few candidates, but my top 3 are Blaine Boyer, Jeff Francoeur and Manny Acosta. Francoeur is just plain awful this year; if he could hit at least .250 with RISP, we’d win half of these one-run games. I have no idea why Boyer and Acosta are even on the roster-every game they pitch, they get into trouble. Yet, Cox continues to punish us by bringing one of them in night after night.