Tuesday night saw the affiliates split four games with the two losses being of the one-run variety. One streak ended and another continued for the Bisons and another affiliate fell back below the .500 mark.

It was a perfect night on the farm as all four affiliates won. Highlights included promising performances from Adam Lind and Casey Janssen. You know it was a good night when even a 10 K performance was not enough to make the cut for the 3 Stars selection.

There is either a two game series with the Phillies starting tonight, or a four game series with the Phillies, depending on how you define a series. Some fans are depressed because the Jays are losing series. Others are optimistic because the Jays are only two games out of first place. No-one in the AL east has made a run yet this season.

Today makes the return of Happy McHapp to the starting rotation. Who knows what to expect? His return against the Phillies, in a park he used to pitch in, is probably a good thing for his comfort level. Dustin McGowan gave the bullpen a rest yesterday, let's hope Happ doesn't set that back today.

The affiliates were 2-2 today, winning and losing a bunch of close games.  Dan Johnson had a strong game for Buffalo, going 3-4 with his 5th home run of the season.

On Friday Ryan Goins drove in the winning run for the Bisons in walk off fashion. On Saturday Kevin Pillar tripled to drive in two runs for a walk off win in Buffalo. New Hampshire lost in extra innings as their bullpen blew leads twice. Dunedin lost while Lansing won behind Jeremy Gabryszwski and Matt Dean.

Ryan Goins drove in the winning run in the eleventh inning of a 0-0 game. Goins also threw out a runner at the plate with a strong throw. Sean Nolin pitched six shutout innings. This was Nolin's third straight start with zero's on the scoreboard. New Hampshire and Lansing lost while Dunedin were rained out.

The Toronto Blue Jays (13-15) start a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates (10-8) at PNC Park this weekend. The Jays are three games back in the loss column of the Yankees and Orioles in the AL East while the Bucs are tied with the Cubs for the NL Central basement and are 9.5 games back of the surprising Milwaukee Brewers.

Five games and the affiliates went 3-2. Australian Liam Hendriks was fantastic again for Buffalo. Matt Boyd made his first start for New Hampshire and had a mixed outing. Taylor Cole pitched well for Dunedin and Mitch Nay hit his first homerun for Lansing, where starter Alberto Tirado allowed one hit over five innings of work.

Congratulations go out to Dwight Smith Jr. and Matt Boyd as they captured the Batter's Box MInor League Player and Pitcher of the Month awards for April. The honours are based on the Minor League Crew's Three Stars selections.


Dwight Smith Jr. and Matt Boyd were picked five times apiece by the Minor League Crew during three-star selections in April.

The Jays affiliates were 2-1 today, while the Fisher Cats were rained out versus the Trenton Thunder.  After a few rough starts, we are slowly starting to see the Lugnuts pitchers pitch well, as today Chase De Jong and Tom Robson were fantastic. 

The affiliates took two of out three games Tuesday with a pair of sterling starts turned in. A fourth game was suspended by Mother Nature and will resume today.

The Jays head to KC without Ryan Goins. Goins likely would not have improved his numbers in KC, the Jays face two left handed pitchers plus Yordano Ventura. Meanwhile Chris Getz gets to face two lefties right away, it could get him off to a hot start.

The Jays throw Dustin McGowan, Drew Hutchison and Mark Buehrle against the Royals. I believe I heard, or read, that McGowan might use an insulin pump in this start. McGowan is a diabetic and the loss of blood sugar could explain his difficulty once he gets 90 minutes into the game. I also believe that Brandon Morrow uses an insulin pump when he pitches. All eyes will be on McGowan tonight.

The affiliates played .500 ball in four games Monday night. They wound up splitting a pair against their counterparts from the Yankees and Reds. Two great starting performances were turned in, a Bison clubbed his first AAA homer and Lansing welcomed the reigning Northwest League MVP to its lineup. However, a Lugnuts pitcher left the game after facing just two batters due to injury.

There are a couple of administrative items that I thought I would cover in a separate thread. They concern new member registration and posting challenges.

In case you didn't notice we cut off new member registrations a month or so ago, for the second time. The reason was to stop spam registrations. At Batters Box we have a two step registration process, you fill out a few details and then we can approve you or not. We have always been actively deleting spam registrations so our membership list doesn't get bloated. Over the past few years we would get between 50 and 70 spam applications per day. We would know they are spam usually by the registration name, either it was an incomprehensible mix of letters, numbers and symbols or it fitted a pattern where there is a name followed by say two numbers and we would have ten requests by jim10, jim 12, and so on. This was a pain in the butt but we could manage.

The affiliates went 3-1 today, with another strong performance from Dalton Pompey.  Ricky Romero pitched 5 scoreless innings, but unfortunately gave up 6 walks.