The bats in Dunedin and Lansing thawed out.  The Auburn bullpen blew a good start by Egan Smith, the GCL Jays were short on hitting with just three hits.  Casey Janssen threw a shutout inning for Dunedin.

Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Dunedin and Lansing all had the night off because they're enjoying their All-Star breaks.  However, Auburn and the boys from the Gulf were in action.  Find out who won and who lost in today's truncated minor league update. 

My apologies for the lateness. I'll make up for this transgression by being as brief as possible.

It's All-Star Season, and as such, the Eastern League will soon be holding their all-star game and home run derby. The only Fisher Cat who will participate in the derby is, as you can probably guess, Brian Dopirak. But there's another participant with Blue Jay ties. Try to guess. I dare you.

The full season affiliates went 3-1 on Sunday while Auburn dropped a pair to halve things for the day.

The Fisher Cats won to prevent another whitewash on the farm.  Good pitching by Adrian Martin and home runs by Nick Gorneault and Brian Jeroloman paced New Hampshire.  David Purcey and Shaun Marcum took the loss in their starts.

The affiliates managed just two wins on the night. What else is new?

There was lots of free baseball on the farm yesterday, but given how things are currently going I’m not sure how much people really wanted more ball. Of the seven games, four went into extra innings and there was a total of thirteen free innings. It didn’t make much difference to the bottom line and the affiliates only won two of the seven games in an unremarkable day on the farm.

Auburn were no hit through eight and two thirds.  It should have been a complete no-hitter except for an error by Mahoning Valley in the ninth.  But then two singles ruined the moment and the no hitter was gone.  New Hampshire were no hit until the sixth inning and they finished with two hits in eleven innings.  The GCL Jays didn't score until the ninth inning.  Dunedin and Lansing were rained out.  Las Vegas were the exception, they scored twelve runs.  Travis Snider got back in the groove with three hits including a home run and a double.

Luis Perez stated his case for a promotion with a strong start for New Hampshire and Dunedin made just enough contact at the plate to earn the only two wins in the system on Tuesday.  The rest of the affiliates didn't fare as well thanks to a come from ahead loss, two extra-inning setbacks and a no-hitter.

All 6 games on the evening were decided by 3 or fewer runs, while 4 were decided by a single score. The affiliates went 3-3 on the night, and guess what? Shaun Marcum is back!

When things aren't going so well for the Jays, I usually immerse myself in the minor leagues and think about what might one day be.  Sunday was a decent enough day for that as the affiliates went 4-2 and featured a few notable performances from promising youngsters.

Joe Inglett had five hits and six RBI's on July 4th to lead Vegas to a big win.  New Hampshire won 2-1 behind Kenny Rodriguez first AA start of 2009.  Dunedin, Auburn and the GCL Jays also were winners, Lansing the only losers on Saturday.  Among the prospects David Cooper, Moises Sierra and Trystan Magnuson are all hot right now.

The affiliates went 3-for-4 on the night, which wasn't too bad considering how they've performed on Friday nights in previous weeks. Both New Hampshire (!) and Dunedin had nice offensive outbursts.

The weather didn’t completely let up as two of the eight scheduled games were either cancelled or postponed. The other six games went ahead as the affiliates went 4-2. There were several fine pitching performances, including a fantastic game by Brad Mills in his return to Triple-A, and an offensive explosion at Double-A.3

Five of eight scheduled games were rained out.  Both Florida teams had doubleheaders scheduled after rainouts on Monday but a second day of rain gave them a second day off.  The three affiliates who did play all won.  Las Vegas wielded the lumber for 16 hits, and benefitted from good middle relief as did New Hampshire.  Lance Durham had a big night for Auburn.