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This morning, Ken Rosenthal reported that Mark Kotsay had cleared waivers and was drawing trade interest from the Red Sox and Phillies. This evening, Kotsay was a late scratch from Atlanta's lineup. Coincidence? Not according to David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Center fielder Mark Kotsay was a late scratch from the Braves' lineup Tuesday, fueling speculation he would be traded before the end of the night to the Boston Red Sox.

A person familiar with the situation said the Braves were close enough to a trade that they didn't want to risk Kotsay getting hurt playing on the rain-soaked surface at Turner Field.

The Red Sox have both a spot on their roster and in their lineup for the taking after finally putting J.D. Drew on the disabled list. Drew was recently diagnosed with a herniated disc in his back and hasn't played since August 17th. Kotsay, ironically, missed five weeks earlier this season with a bulging disc himself, but he's healthy right now, and considering he'll be a free agent in just a few short months, that's really all that matters.

Kotsay doesn't have nearly as powerful a bat as Drew, but he's certainly an improvement over Coco Crisp, the slap-hitting fourth outfielder pressed into duty by Drew's injury. Since the All-Star break, Kotsay has posted a .820 OPS; Crisp, just .686.

Update: According to Y!'s Gordon Edes, the deal is done pending a physical.

We're only a few days away from baseball's waiver trade deadline of August 31, and though there hasn't been nearly as much wheeling and dealing in August as there was in July, there are still a few moves we may see before the deadline passes.

In Detroit the Tigers have placed veteran left-hander and hater of cameramen everywhere Kenny Rogers on waivers, and he may be traded any day now.

Rogers said Monday that he was not aware of any trade discussions involving him. And he did not appear concerned with the prospect of being dealt.

"Dealing in hypotheticals is very difficult -- I'm not one to do that," Rogers said. "I haven't thought about a deadline. I'm not worried about one, that's for sure."

The article in the Detroit Free Press also says that Rogers isn't the only player the team placed on waivers, just that he's one of "several" players. Who those players are, it doesn't say. As for where Rogers will end up, the Red Sox have shown interest in him lately, and I'm guessing if he goes anywhere, Boston will be it.

Though I'm not sure why the Red Sox would want him. He's 9-11 with a 5.09 ERA on the season, and hitters are succeeding at a .312 clip against him since the All Star break. Maybe they're hoping that a move to a contending team will rejuvenate the veteran down the stretch.

Joba Chamberlain will make his long-awaited return to the mound today ... when he throws 30 pitches in a carefully-monitored bullpen session. He's only going to throw fastballs and change-ups, and even if things go perfectly, it's still not clear when he'll actually appear in a game.

As speculated last week, Joe Girardi does sound open to putting his young ace back in the bullpen, at least until Chamberlain builds up his arm strength. From Ed Price of the Star-Ledger:

"We've always thought of him as a starter," manager Joe Girardi said Friday. "That's how I still think of him.

"There's not a lot of time to build up, so we might have to be creative how we build him up. ... We're not exactly sure how we're going to do it."

As Price notes, it'd be one thing if Joba were trying to return in the middle of the summer, but with the Yankees' farm clubs approaching the end of their seasons, he simply won't be afforded the opportunity to make a handful of three-, four- and five-inning minor league rehab starts until he gets back into shape. Instead, once he's ready to test his shoulder in a game situation, he'll probably have to be thrown into the fire as a big league long reliever.

It seems likely that the bulldozer that Neal Huntington is using to rebuild the Pirates with will not rest until it's eliminated most of the ruins left behind by his predecessors. After trading away Xavier Nady, Jason Bay, and Damaso Marte for prospects, he shipped Jose Bautista (the team's former "third baseman of the future") off to Toronto yesterday for a player to be named. All indications are that he's not done. When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked him about Jack Wilson's future in Pittsburgh, Huntington said this about the longest tenured Pirate:

"The reality is that we can't make emotional decisions on any player. Jack certainly has proven his worth again defensively, and we can see that the whole club solidified with him out there. But we always need to leave ourselves the ability to make the team better. Jack, hopefully, will be a big part of this turnaround going forward. But, as it was with Jason and Xavier and Damaso Marte, if the right baseball trade is out there, we'll have to entertain it."

In less than a year in Pittsburgh, Huntington has already turned over more than half of the Pirates' 40-man roster. That seems dramatic, but it was what needed to be done. Pittsburgh is still a long ways removed from contending again, but cleaning house is certainly a first step in the right direction.

I have to admit, when I first saw Alexei Ramirez in a White Sox uniform, I thought the Sox had broken new ground by scouting for baseball talent in Ethiopia. The kid was so skinny that even Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen thought he was bulimic. Well, as it turns out, the Cuban import has been a fantastic addition to the White Sox this season.

I've already begun my Carlos Quentin for MVP campaign here on FanHouse, so I don't want to litter the place with more "The White Sox rule!" posts, but I have to say, Alexei deserves some recognition for A.L. Rookie of the Year. I wouldn't have said this a few weeks ago, but now with Evan Longoria on the disabled list, there's a chance Alexei could change a few minds.

Not that he cares. He's just honored to be playing here.

"It really feels like a dream right now that I don't want to wake up from," said Ramirez, who played for several national teams and for Pinar Del Rio in his native Cuba before this season.

"In certain lineups, [Griffey] has been hitting behind me, and it's an absolute honor to be in the same lineup."

Seeing as how the Mariners really suck this season, I've kind of stopped paying attention to them. Of course, because of that, I forgot just how bad the team really is. Thankfully the three games I just saw them play against the White Sox in Chicago this week reaffirmed everything I previously knew.

One of the reasons the Mariners are so horrible this season can be attributed to the Erik Bedard trade. The Mariners sent Adam Jones, George Sherrill, the Space Needle, and majority ownership in Starbucks to Baltimore for the southpaw. While a lot of people thought the addition of Bedard would help the Mariners win the AL West (I only had them as the wild card, so I guess that makes me slightly less stupid), thanks to his injuries and ineffectiveness, they're fighting just to avoid 100 losses this season.

Bedard cost the Mariners their season, and the jobs of John McLaren and Bill Bavasi. Fortunately for all involved, the odds of Erik returning this season to claim the livelihoods of others are slim at best.

Pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and [Jim] Riggleman both say that Bedard did not come out of his last throwing session feeling well, as he had in previous outings.

Despite the crackdown on performance-enhancing drugs, pitchers are throwing harder than ever. Eamonn recently passed along speculation that they're managing this thanks to, among other things, energy drinks.

So hey, let's give Kyle Farnsworth half a case of Red Bull and see what happens. This evening's Dugout is after the jump.

Really quickly, a personal story: Just last week, I gave up caffeine. OK, not really: I gave up drinking large quantities of caffeine, pledging to get plenty of sleep and ween myself off the demon chemical slowly. A few nasty headaches later, here I am, 20 percent less productive but 60 percent less likely to collapse in a heap at my desk. It feels good.

Major League pitchers are trending the opposite way. In fact, even after heavy fines and more potent testing, pitchers are throwing harder than ever, the possible product of Red Bull, Ritalin, and who knows what else:

Take, for instance, the fastball. One purported benefit of amphetamines is helping wired-up relief pitchers come into games with all guns blazing, throwing their filthiest stuff, and then helping them get ready to do it again the next day. If the new drug policy were having the kind of widespread impact it's been thought to have had, we'd expect to see average velocities declining across the game. They aren't. The Fangraphs Web site has data on average pitch speed, licensed from Baseball Info Solutions, going back to 2005. In that year, 89 relievers throwing a minimum of 40 innings averaged 91 mph or better with their fastball. Sixteen of them topped 94; eight topped 95.

Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees go together like lamb and tuna fish. Or perhaps you prefer spaghetti and meatball. Or even Brett Favre and Green Bay. But as Joel Sherman pointed out in the New York Post on Sunday, the idea that Jeter might somehow not be a Yankee for life is suddenly not that crazy.

Because Jeter is no more associated with the Yankees than Favre was with the Packers. If that marriage can end in such a nasty divorce, don't we at least have to consider that it can happen with Jeter and the Yanks - at least this version of the Yanks?

The involved parties, as you would expect, treated the subject [of Jeter's expiring contract] like plutonium. Jeter told The Post's George King that he did not follow the Favre situation "very closely" and that he hasn't thought about his next contract. Sure he hasn't. Jeter's long-time agent, Casey Close, refused to discuss the matter, saying, "It is far too premature to answer that."

Yankees GM Brian Cashman said, "Who is to predict how things take place? We have problems in the present to deal with. Trying to anticipate the future is a waste of time and energy right now."

Um, call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain Cashman has been urging the Yankees ownership to do nothing but think of the future as he's attempted to wean them off of throwing long-term money at unproven free agents and over-the-hill veterans.

On Thursday of last week, Tom Glavine returned to the mound for the Atlanta Braves for the first time since June 10th. Things didn't go very well, as the 300-game winner gave up seven runs in four innings, and still felt pain in his elbow after the game. It's because of this pain in his elbow that we now know Glavine has pitched his last game in 2008, as he's going to be shut down for the season.

The real question is, will Thursday's start against the Cubs be the last of Tommy's career. He's scheduled to visit with Dr. James Andrews next week, and the results of his tests there will determine what Glavine decides to do.

"All the discussions I've had, and the MRI I had before, were that it's my flexor tendon," Glavine said. "The soreness I have now is the same soreness I had then. You can pinpoint a needlehead as to where the pain is, and it just puts me through the roof when you touch it, so it's very similar in that regard. There have been some discussions about what my ligament might look like, but I think there's a very low percentage that there might be something wrong with my ligament.

"And if there was, honestly, I'd leave it alone and I'd be done. I wouldn't come back from that kind of surgery now. I'd fix the flexor tendon and leave the ligament alone and live the rest of my life."