5 rival trade rumors that could be disastrous for the Blue Jays

5. The Rays have expressed interest in acquiring Tigers starter Michael Lorenzen

Jon Morosi of MLB.com has reported that the Rays are one of the contending teams that have shown interest in Tigers’ pitcher Michael Lorenzen. So the Rays must be pretty desperate in getting some solid starting pitching help with all these rumors surrounded around starting pitchers. It definitely makes sense because after all, two of their key starters in Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs are apparently out for the season.

Lorenzen has been having an impressive season with the lowly Tigers ballclub, posting a 5-6 record with a 3.49 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, giving up 39 earned runs, 26 walks and 76 strikeouts in 100.2 innings of work in 17 starts. In doing so, he was selected to his first ever All-Star game this year. Lorenzen is not your typical overpowering pitcher that would strikeout a whole lot of batters, but he is good at limiting baserunners and pitches to contact as part of his strength in his game.

With respect to the Jays, Lorenzen is also a potential trade target for the team, as he would provide the necessary starting pitching depth for the ballclub, and would probably not require a whole lot of assets to get him. However, it still might not be the end of the world if the Rays do end up grabbing Lorenzen, but every little addition by the team the Jays are trying to chase down just makes the task to catch them that much harder in the coming weeks.

Hopefully, the bulk of these talks and speculations end up to be literally just “rumors”, and that the Blue Jays will make their own splash at the trade deadline to become the talk of the town. Otherwise, it is going to be a long, long, long road to glory ahead of them.