Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s All-Star Week plans, play “Would you rather?” with the White Sox and Cardinals, the Padres and Mets, Carlos Rodón and Alek Manoah, and the Rangers and Diamondbacks, compare the values of Pablo López and Luis Arraez

discuss starting pitchers who might be available at the trade deadline

run down the dilemmas facing a few teams on the border between buying and selling, and use projections

to identify the positions on contending teams that are most in need of an upgrade. Then

they Stat Blast about the most baserunners allowed while facing the minimum, low-scoring division leaders, the Nationals’ odd home/away split, Chris Vallimont and players traded right after debuting, the all-time leaders in up-and-down seasons, pitchers’ error-prone throwing, whether an official-scoring conspiracy is boosting batting averages, and Shohei Ohtani with and without Mike Trout batting behind him, plus