The Red Sox sent Daisuke Matsuzaka to the mound last night hoping to roll a seven, but with the knowledge they might roll snake-eyes.

The ‘pitching surplus’ the front office believed it had stocked last winter had turned out to be a mirage due to ineffectiveness (Penny and Smoltz) and injury (Matsuzaka and Wakefield).

The rapid maturation of Clay Buchholz had helped plug the dike, but the recent struggles of ace Josh Beckett caused many to question whether this team could make a run deep into October.

So after scouring Cot's Baseball Contracts, we have come up with a number of hypothetical trades for the Cubs and Zambrano this offseason that might, or might not, make sense.

Cubs acquire: Francisco Cordero

Reds acquire: Carlos Zambrano

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Why this makes sense for the Cubs

-Cordero is one of the elite closers in baseball coming off a fantastic 2009 season

The Washington Nationals are 19 games away from securing the top pick in baseball’s amateur draft for the second straight season.

You can decide if congratulations or condolences are in order.

For Latinos living in the United States it is fiesta time.

This week it just started the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

It may not be his fault, but John Mozeliak has been bamboozled.

Who would have thought that when Mozeliak acquired Mark DeRosa from the Cleveland Indians in late June that he would trade for Matt Holliday, who would then go on to have an MVP-caliber second half?

And there was no way that Mozeliak or anybody else could predict the wrist injury that DeRosa endured less than a week after beginning his stint with the Cardinals.

Filed:Sept. 16, 2009

The Chicago Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano (Cubbie Nation/file)

Stop it. Everybody.

Six walk-off hits—four of which have been long balls.

That’s what Andre Ethier has done this season for the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers.

The six walk-off winners are an all-time high for a single player in the divisional era. In fact, he has the most walk-off hits in a single season since 1974, and his four walk-off homers are also the most since ’74.

Justin Morneau was the last player to hit three walk-off homers in a season, doing so in ’07.

Portions of this article originally appeared on Vype.com and vype.com/dfw.

Etheir's penchant for drama

Andre Ethier collected his 6^th walk-off last night; the most in the majors.