So here we are a bit less than two hours before the trade deadline, and the Phillies not only haven't made any moves since the Joe Blanton deal two weeks ago, they aren't even showing up in too many rumors. Ken Rosenthal at FOX has them in on the usual lefty relief suspects, and there's a long-shot story about Manny Ramirez for Jayson Werth and Brett Myers floating around, and Greg Golson isn't in Reading's lineup this afternoon. But that's about it. 

I'm fine with this. The team is in first place, albeit by the slimmest of margins, and I don't feel like we've seen everyone at their best. Perhaps more to the point, Pat Gillick has done some of his best work (the Jamie Moyer trade in 2006, for instance) after the non-waiver deadline. 

We don't generally make a big point of defending the Phils front office, and Gillick has made his share of blunders over the last three years. (Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of the most egregious.) But let's consider the rumors we have heard over the last few days: Jason Donald for Ron Mahay? J.A. Happ and Greg Golson for Will Ohman? It's just not a good call to trade projectable big-leaguers for specialists thriving in small sample sizes who are outperforming their peripherals. 

My big fear was that Gillick would cash out the farm in one of these marginal deals, seeking last-go-round glory or even just to give the sense of doing something, anything. With an hour and fifty minutes left, I'm cautiously hopeful that no news will, in fact, prove to be good news.