Amaro biding time to see whether Phils buy or sell

LOS ANGELES -- Ruben Amaro Jr. said Thursday he sees the Phillies taking their deadline decisions all the way to the July 31 Trade Deadline.

Thank some relatively mediocre play in the National League East for that.

"The only reason why I say that is because it's still really dicey," he said in the visitors' dugout at Dodger Stadium. "No one has really stepped out and gone crazy. We're only seven back. We had one streak where we've really played well and we've only had a fairly brief time where we've had our team on the field. We'll find out. I honestly think it's going to end up going to July 20 or 30 or somewhere around then when we'll decide which direction we're going to go."

The Phillies continued a 10-game road trip Thursday with their series opener against the Dodgers. The Dodgers have been playing better recently, winning five consecutive games. Following the Dodgers series, the Phillies play a three-game series in Pittsburgh. The Pirates entered the night tied with the Cardinals for the best record in baseball.

The Phillies finish their play before the All-Star break with a 10-game homestand against the Braves, Nationals and White Sox.

Since the Braves started the season 12-1, they are just 33-33. The Phillies are 32-33 in that same stretch, while the Nationals are 31-32.

"We all get spoiled," Amaro said. "We think that winning is just going to happen. We seem to forget that people have to perform for teams to win. It doesn't happen on paper. You can make predictions all you want. The fact of the matter is, people have to play and you have to be lucky. Some teams get unlucky and some teams don't get performance.

"Look at Cole Hamels. I would like somebody to tell me he would be 2-11. It's hard to imagine. Same thing with Cliff Lee last year. Baseball is an amazingly crazy game. I still think [Hamels] is one of the best left-handers in the game. It just hasn't happened for him this year, for whatever reason. Performance. Luck. Mojo. It's just a crazy game. We'd be talking about how you're going to improve this team to make this run. We'd be having totally different discussions if we had small tweaks in performance."