Trenton Thunder lose three players in the Yankee..

trade with the Pirates. Yanks pick up OF Xavier Nady and lefty reliever Damaso Marte in exchange for Thunder OF and sometimes problem child Jose Tabata and starting pitchers Phil Coke and George Kontos along with Triple A starter Russ Ohlendorf who has pitched in the bigs. It's a steal for the Yanks. Check out Mike Ashmore's blog at once!
This stuff use to happen every July trading deadline when the Navigators (Yankees) were here. The big club would trade a couple of our beloved Navigators for a "name" player for the stretch run. Be interesting how this shakes out for the first place Thunder. Trenton has a 8.5 game lead on second place Portland (SeaDogs beat Trenton 2-1 tonight). B-Mets are 10.5 GB and CT is 12 GB. CT got to win games against teams like NB if Sept. baseball is going to happen!

**UPDATE: multi-sources are reporting Coke and Konoos have been pulled from the trade and replaced with Dan McCutchen and Jeff Karstens. This lessens the blow to the Thunder a bunch as they only lose Tabata now.