People saying this was a .500 team at the half way mark before the trades are forgetting it was a .500 team with the best run differential in the league
essentially they were an extremely unlucky .500 team
if you look here on July 1st
http://www.baseball-reference.com/ga...it=Submit+Date
based on their Run differential they should have been winning about 60% of their games
and right now they are a much better team than the 1st half of last year solely by
Stroman>Buerhle
Happ>Hutchison
Tulo>Reyes