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Oh look– The Big Poker, vacillating more wildly than the mechanical bull at Xfinity Live!*

Last week, Ruben Amaro told anyone who wanted to listen, like, OMMMMMIGOOOD IF THE PHILLIES DON’T START WINNING SOON I’M TOTALLY GOING TO TRADE AWAY THE WHOLE TEAM.

Something like that.^  Needs less Valley Girl, though.

Today, per a report by Jayson Stark (Phillies beat writers are oh-4-threeeeee today), one rival exec says Amaro is not at all interested in trading Cole Hamels or Shane Victorino : [ESPN.com]

No storyline all season has been more exaggerated than the Phillies' supposed attempts to explore dealing their two biggest potential free agents, Cole Hamels and Shane Victorino. An official of one team that looked into that alleged availability described Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. as having "zero" interest in trading either of those players and said: "They'd have to be really out of it to trade anybody. And that's not going to happen."

 

Cock: slammed. 

That’s in Stark contrast to what Amaro told Jim Salisbury and Ken Rosenthal last week:

[CSN Philly]

“July is so far ahead,” Amaro said. “We just have to get on track. But if July comes and we’re playing like this, we’ll be sellers. How we play now will determine whether we’ll be buyers or sellers in July.”

 

[FOX Sports] 

“I don’t expect us to be in a seller’s mode. But I also have to be realistic. If the team decides it doesn’t want to play the way we expect to play or play the caliber of baseball necessary to win, you can’t squeeze blood from a stone.”  

 

Clearly, the recent five-game winning streak and the emergence of Fat Carlos Ruiz have helped Amaro go from Captain Panic Pants to the dick-swinging, free-wheeling, smug bastard (endearingly) he is. I sense that the minute the Phillies hit the .500 mark again, Rube picked up his battery-packed enhanced iPhone:

Amaro: Siri, get me Oswalt… and get me somebody while I wait.

SiriI'm sorry, My Daddy, I can't do that. The operators in Mississippi are unavailable to connect the call to Roy's home. Shall I search the web for Ed Wade's phone number?

And sadly, that is the only bad thing about this year’s trade deadline: the most value Amaro can obtain from Wade is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Wade’s daughter Erin packed for her father on any given day. That’s the sad part here, folks.

 

*Oddly, both have been known to harbor a coed from time to time.