"The first major-league trade of the Jeff Luhnow era defied all odds and expectations.

The Astros didn't do a salary dump.

They didn't beg and plead until somebody took the salary of Carlos Lee, Brett Myers or Wandy Rodriguez off their hands. Maybe that will come later. Or soon.

In Luhnow's first deal since the Astros introduced him as general manager last Thursday, he sent righthander Mark Melancon to the Boston Red Sox for shortstop Jed Lowrie and pitcher Kyle Weiland. Luhnow traded a cost-effective — emphasis on the effective — reliever for a switch-hitter who projects as the starting shortstop and a 25-year-old right-hander who steadily progressed through the Red Sox minor-league system. Lowrie is arbitration-eligible in 2012 — two years before Melancon, 26, reaches that point in the career where the pay-scale pendulum shifts in the player's favor."