There were others that just don’t seem to care about wins or losses anymore. Like John Lackey, who apparently needs to travel with the team and work with trainer Mike Reinold while recovering from Tommy John surgery – a fairly standard rehab that literally thousands of pitchers have come back from stronger-than-ever over the last 30 years. But for whatever reason, the underachieving righty needs to travel with the team even though he won’t be throwing even one measly pitch for them. Lackey was so busted up after the latest defeat that he was strutting around the clubhouse with a can of Bud Light in each hand, or what is known as "double-fisting" on every college campus in the history of mankind.

A four-team trade that would send Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers is complete, multiple sources told ESPN on Thursday night. A source with direct knowledge of the talks told ESPN.com's Marc Stein the Lakers will receive Howard, the Denver Nuggets will acquire Andre Iguodala, the 76ers will receive Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson, and the Magic will get Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic and one protected future first-round pick from each of the other three teams.

Consider this scenario: Player A: An average defensive player over his career randomly has a great defensive season. Player B: An average offensive player over his career puts up gaudy offensive numbers out of nowhere. Player A's WAR from that defensive season will be dismissed by the vast majority as being useless and incorrect, and his WAR will be ignored because of the "bad or incorrect data" being used to measure his defense. Quite oppositely, Player B's WAR will be accepted as hard fact, and his numbers are either considered a fluke or a "breakout" campaign. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It’s one thing to not be happy with your role, which Oswalt’s made clear he’s not. It’s another thing to say no to trying to help your team win, which is apparently what he did Sunday in Kansas City when he told manager Ron Washington he couldn’t pitch a third inning of relief. That’s not the way the clubhouse was built. Oswalt should have shown up for the Colby Lewis press conference a couple of weeks ago. He would have seen a pitch who’s eyes were bloodshot because of the tears that he had shed. Those weren’t tears of pity; those were tears of a pitcher who was upset because he wasn’t going to be able to help his team down the stretch.