According to a major league source, the Red Sox had some interest in Giants left-hander Jonathan Sanchez before he was dealt to the Royals for outfielder Melky Cabrera. Boston and San Francisco did not match up as trade partners, however, given the Giants’ interest in acquiring an everyday major league outfielder in return.

Sanchez, who turns 29 this month, struggled to a 4-7 record and 4.26 ERA in 19 starts last year, as injuries and walks (a career-high 5.9 per nine innings) resulted in diminished effectiveness. The Sox had concerns about his ankle and his strike-throwing ability.

Even so, the hard-throwing left-hander has struck out 9.4 batters per nine innings throughout his career, and he was a significant contributor to the Giants team that won the World Series in 2010, going 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA and 205 strikeouts (as well as an NL-high 96 walks) that season.

Even so, the Sox weren’t a match for the Giants, who instead moved to acquire Cabrera, who hit .305 with a .339 OBP, .470 slugging mark, .809 OPS, 18 homers, 87 RBI and 20 steals (in 30 attempts) while playing all three outfield positions for the Royals in 2011.

Melky Cabrera was traded to the Giants on Monday. (AP)

The Royals sent center fielder Melky Cabrera to the Giants in exchange for left-handed pitchers Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo, the teams announced Monday. Cabrera is coming off his best season as a major leaguer, hitting .305 with a .339 OBP and 87 RBIs with the Royals, and does not carry a long-term contract as he is projected to become a free agent after the 2012 season.

Cabrera played for the Yankees for the first five years of his career and made a memorable catch in June of 2006 that robbed Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez of a home run and helped the Yankees preserve a 2-1 lead that pushed them 1 1/2 games up on the Red Sox in the division. Cabrera had a pedestrian career for the Yankees through much of his tenure in New York and was ultimately traded to the Braves after the 2009 season.

Sanchez, a 28-year-old southpaw, was impressive for the Giants during the 2010 season, going 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA despite not having been expected to play a major role on the team. In 2011, Sanchez regressed and went 4-7 with a 4.26 ERA in 19 starts before a high ankle sprain cut his season short. Sanchez has an opportunity to develop as a top starter in Kansas City, which has a thin starting rotation penciled in for next season.

Verdugo, a 24-year-old rising prospect, experienced mixed results in his first season as a minor league starter. Verdugo was 8-6 with a 4.35 ERA in 25 starts with Double-A Richmond. He was a ninth-round draft pick out of Louisiana State University in 2008.

Andrew Miller

The Red Sox will play host to the Royals in the second game of a four-game series Tuesday night at Fenway Park as they try to recover from Monday’s marathon loss in extra innings.

Andrew Miller (4-1, 4.65), who made his 2011 debut June 20, gets the call for the Red Sox, while the Royals will send rookie Danny Duffy (2-4, 4.58) to the hill. Miller is in his sixth season, but he has only appeared in 20 or more games in two of those six seasons.

Miller is coming off of an outing where he struggled with his control, but battled to get out of jams and did not allow a run in the Red Sox 4-0 win over the Orioles July 20. Miller allowed six walks in just 5 2/3 innings, but only allowed two hits and struck out three to earn the win.

The Red Sox have won five of the six games that Miller has started since he joined the rotation. Miller has not made it into the seventh inning in any of his starts with the Red Sox. He has allowed 16 earned runs in 31 innings of work.

Duffy is coming off of one of his better outings of the season. He went seven innings, giving up two runs on five hits and earned the win in the Royals 4-2 win over the White Sox on July 19. The outing before that Duffy was the touch luck loser as he gave up only two runs in six innings, but the Royals offense did not help him out any as the Royals fell to the Tigers 3-1 on July 7.

Duffy was optioned to triple-A on July 8 before being recalled on July 19.

Both pitchers have very little experience against the opposition. Duffy has never faced anyone on the Red Sox. Miller has only faced four members of the Royals, all fewer than 10 times. Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur each have nine at-bats against the left-hander. Cabrera has one hit, while Francoeur has two.

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The Royals and Phillies are reportedly trying to work out a deal that would send Royals outfielder Melky Cabrera to the Phillies, according to FoxSports.com’s Jon Paul Morosi.

The Phillies have reportedly been interested in the Mets’ Carlos Beltran, but Cabrera would not be a bad alternative. The switch-hitter is hitting .294 with 12 home runs and 54 RBIs this season.

The Royals have two outfielders that have received interest leading up to the July 31 trade deadline, Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur. It is unlikely that the Royals will deal both outfielders.

With the Royals currently in last place in the AL Central, they will most likely be sellers at the upcoming trading deadline. MLB.com’s Dick Kaegel takes a look at players the Royals might be looking to deal and what they want to receive in return.

He names outfielders Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur as outfielders the team might concider dealing. Also he names corner infielder Wilson Betemit and starting pitchers Bruce Chen, Jeff Francis and Kyle Davies as other players who could be traded.

According to Royals general manager Dayton Moore any deal that the team makes would need to help the team in the future.

“Any deal that we would potentially make would be something that we felt would help us long term,” Moore said. “We’ll be open-minded as we move forward, as we always are, but there’s no specific strategy in place where we’re trying to push a certain player.”

Cabrera is currently batting .293, with 11 home runs and 51 RBIs. Francoeur is batting .265 with 12 home runs and 56 RBIs.

On Monday, Jon Lester pitches in Yankee Stadium for the first time since being hit on the knee by a line drive. (AP)

NEW YORK — The memory is not prominent in Jon Lester‘s mind.

After all, at first, the pitcher could not remember the last time he took the mound at Yankee Stadium, thinking that he had done so this season before realizing that, no, this would be the first time he’d taken the mound in the Bronx since disaster almost struck. Lester’s last start in Yankee Stadium took place last Sept. 25. The line score (2 1/3 innings, eight hits, five runs) from one of his worst outings of the season became immaterial thanks to the last pitch he threw.

Lester’s 78th pitch of the night was cracked back up the middle by then-Yankees outfielder Melky Cabrera. The ball, according to Lester’s description that night, “was going about Mach 7″ when it rocketed off of the inside of his right knee. Instantly, he went down in a heap on the mound, and onlookers feared that his tremendously bright future might have been suddenly jeopardized.

“It was a well-struck ball. You cringed that it hit the kneecap, with a chance of it shattering or cracking,” pitching coach John Farrell recalled on Sunday, before cracking a smile. “Thankfully, he’s big-boned.”

Despite the tremendous force of the liner, serious damage was avoided. There was no fracture; there were no bone fragments. It was just a contusion, and Lester’s season and career continued on without interruption.

On Monday afternoon, he will pitch in the Yankees’ home ballpark for the first time since that day. But the thought that he narrowly averted catastrophe will not be on Lester’s mind today, just as it has not been a consideration in the nearly 11 months since the incident.

“As a pitcher you can’t think about that stuff. Then you’d start flinching and worrying about balls coming back at you,” said Lester. “It hit my knee. That’s part of baseball. It’s just like us throwing inside to guys. You’re going to hit guys. They can’t think about that. So you just move on.”

The Red Sox made their move to add rotation depth when they acquired John Lackey last week. This morning, the Yankees appear ready to make a comparably significant splash, adding a strikeout-an-inning starter to a rotation that already includes CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte.

According to several reports, the New York has acquired starter Javier Vazquez and reliever Boone Logan from the Braves in exchange for outfielder Melky Cabrera, prospect Mike Dunn and a player to be named, reportedly Arodys Vizcaino. News of the Yankees’ pursuit of Vazquez was first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

Vazquez went 15-10 with a career-low 2.87 ERA and 238 strikeouts in 219.1 innings in 2009. He’s thrown at least 198 innings in each of the last 10 years, reaching double digits in wins in each of those seasons. While he finished fourth in the NL Cy Young voting in 2009, he has been more dominant in the NL than in two separate stints in the American League.

Vazquez, ,33, has spent eight seasons in the NL, going 90-93 with a 4.02 ERA. In four seasons in the AL (one with the Yankees in 2004, and three more with the White Sox from 2006-08), he had a 52-46 record and 4.52 ERA. As a member of the Yankees in 2004, he went 14-10 with a 4.91 ERA, and he gave up a grand slam to Johnny Damon in Game 7 of the ALCS against the Red Sox.

That said, Vazquez has virtually identical numbers in the two leagues in hits per nine innings (8.9 in both leagues), homers (1.1 per nine innings in the NL, 1.2 per nine innings in the AL), walks (2.3 in NL, 2.5 in AL) and strikeouts (8.1 per nine innings in both leagues).

Logan, 24, had a 5.19 ERA in 20 games for the Braves last year. He held lefties to a .231 average and .626 OPS.

The switch-hitting Cabrera, 25, hit .274 with a .752 OPS and 13 homers for the Yankees as their everyday centerfielder in 2009. He became expendable when the Yankees acquired Curtis Granderson, though the Yankees will now be in the market for a starting left-fielder.

Dunn, a 24-year-old southpaw, pitched in four games for the Yankees last year after forging a 3.31 ERA in 38 minor-league games at two levels last year. Dunn punched out 99 in 73.1 innings while walking 46.

Vizcaino, 19, went 2-4 with a 2.13 ERA in the short-season New York Penn League last year, punching out 11.1 batters per nine innings.