Jayson Stark and Tim Kjurkian (sp) were marvelling, on ESPN, that 3 of the game's 10 best starting pitchers each left their teams in one 24-hour day.  Has that ever happened before?

Not only is it thunderously rare (maybe unique) for 3 such prize horses to bolt their stables all at the same moment.... but it so happened that each of the 3 were direct knees to one single team's man region:

............

1.  John Lackey, genuinely the guts of their 6-year* division stranglehold, left.

1a.  He went to perhaps their most heated rivals, Boston, who crushed them in the playoffs in 2007 and 2008.  And who they'll face again if they make the playoffs.

.............

2.  Roy Halladay, the one man they were desperately hoping to get to maintain the stranglehold, was traded out of the league and immediately signed a long-term contract.

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3.  Cliff Lee signed with the Mariners -- division competitors who also had just signed the Angels' peoples-choice MVP, Chone Figgins.

...............

Lackey and Lee could be argued as a 10-game swing in the standings, right there.  And that's just Strat-O-Matic, emotionless 1's and 0's.  To say nothing of the intangibles.

I wonder if this was the worst starting-pitcher day a city's fans ever had :- )

Conversely, if the trade goes through, we may have just experienced THE best starting-pitcher day a city ever had.   Nominations accepted.

.................

Am looking forward to seeing how they'd react if the M's landed Bay or Gonzalez.  Naaaaah.  We're the genteel types.  Hate to pile on...