PAWTUCKET -- A few short hours after he bid many of his teammates goodbye, Lars Anderson was back in the PawSox clubhouse and lineup on Sunday.

The reported deal that would have sent Anderson to Oakland in exchange for starting pitcher Rich Harden fell through late Saturday night, leaving the first baseman still in Pawtucket.

Saturday was an unusually fatiguing day for Anderson.

"Intense, man. Felt like I got called up," he said. "Probably got the same amount of text messages I did when I got called up. A lot of talk. My dad's in town, I was hanging out with him last night, just chatting. Probably got too far ahead of myself as far as the daydreaming goes. It was crazy."

Anderson was pulled from the PawSox lineup with one out in the seventh inning of a one-run game for pinch-hitter Daniel Nava. Anderson clearly hadn't hurt himself, and there was a prolonged delay while Nava prepped to pinch-hit. It wasn't difficult to piece together what was happening.

"This time of year, when things like that happen, these guys aren't stupid," manager Arnie Beyeler said. "You've kind of got an idea. He's either going to the big leagues because something happened up there or he's involved in something. That's part of the deal with these situations."

Anderson talked with Beyeler after the game to figure out what was going on.

"He just wanted to know what was going on. I couldn't tell him anything. I said, 'I don't know,'" Beyeler said on Sunday. "We were watching TV, we saw the Harden deal on TV, we put two and two together. I was never told anything from that standpoint. Just that they had some things going on and he might be a guy in the mix for something. That's why we took him out of the game. I told him that if I heard something, he'd be the first to know."

Anderson learned sometime after midnight that the deal had fallen through and that his farewells were premature.

"My understanding is that Harden needed to pass a physical or something of that nature. I don't know what happened," Anderson said. "I thought it was pretty close, but granted he's had a lot of physical stuff in the past, so that was something I always thought could throw the deal off."

For Anderson, it's an exercise in what-could-have-been. As a first baseman in the Red Sox system, Anderson is stuck behind one of the best and most durable first basemen in the league in Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez is locked in until 2018 in Boston, and he has averaged 160 games played over the past five seasons.

"There's more of an opportunity to be in the big leagues there than here obviously at my position," Anderson said of Oakland. "It was an exciting personal prospect for my own career. Like I said, it's all fantasy."

Even more alluring, though, was the chance to play close to home. Anderson was born in Oakland and spent most of his youth in Sacramento, where the A's Triple-A affiliate is located. He was already planning to spend his off-season in the Bay Area.

"It was just pretty surreal. I grew up going to those games when I was a little kid," he said. "I've lived in Sacramento the last 16 or 18 years; that's where the Triple-A field is. I lived in Oakland before that. So one way or the other, it was going to be a hometown affair. That was exciting. It might have been overwhelming, but it was going to be exciting, too. It was exciting to think about."

Beyeler made sure to get the go-ahead to put Anderson back in the lineup on Sunday with the trade deadline at 4 p.m.

"From a baseball standpoint, I hope he stays in there all day. But you never know," said Beyeler. "He's a professional guy. It's a lot easier to make a lineup out with him in the middle of it than having him sitting on the bench having to watch. It helps our team out a lot when he's in our lineup, without a doubt."

Beyeler added that his bench would be on notice all afternoon, with the possibility of similarly abrupt substitutions still high. Trainer John Jochim is on call in case anything breaks while Beyeler is out coaching third base, as was the case Saturday night. With Anderson about to stride to the plate, Jochim motioned to Beyeler to tell him he needed to use a pinch-hitter.

"It was kind if awkward, and we weren't ready for that," Beyeler said. "Stuff happens."

All the while, Anderson has had his best month of the season in July. Entering Sunday's action, he is batting .297 with six homers and 23 RBIs in the month. His OPS for July is .930.

"I'd rather him not think about his power numbers as much. I'd rather him think about being more consistent of a line-drive hitter," Pawtucket hitting coach Chili Davis said. "Instead of looking at Christmas when you're in February, let's start at Valentine's Day. Hit the ball hard, stay short, and that's what he has been doing.

"He has the power to leave left field, left-center, right-center and right field. He doesn't need to force it. He's got a beautiful swing."

Photo: Ruben Perez
Twitter: @TBritton_Projo