The affiliates split their four games on Saturday while the top prospects all had top prospect-y nights.

The farm club put in some great pitching and OK hitting and came up winning for the evening.  Jessie Chavez took his third win for Las Vegas with a brilliant outing and what we could call a “parsimonious” pitching performance.  Hats off to the pitching staffs at all levels Friday, allowing only 8 runs in two games while striking out a total of 31.

The Jays return to the Dome after a 4-3 road trip that can't help but feel unsuccessful because of how it ended: badly. The club scored a combined 3 runs in 3 games in Baltimore, and two of those runs were the result of a pretty awful error committed by Nick Johnson. Meanwhile the Mariners roll into town after rolling the Tigers, winning their three game set by the very un-Marinerlike margin of 21-9. Who will win? Who will lose? Will there be cake? Find out, this, and more, in the Advance Scout.

Also special programming note for those in the Vancouver area: the Vancouver Canadians are hosting a Viewing Party/Tweetup for those interested in watching the Jays take on the Mariners, live with audio, at Mahony & Sons at Canada Place, April 28th (Saturday) at 1 PM local time. More details online at http://vancouvercanadianstweetup.eventbrite.com/!

Blue Jays' farm clubs went 2-2 on the night with eye-popping results in New Hampshire, expected results in Lansing, and troubling news from Las Vegas of the deja-vu variety.

Pitchers get a lot of recognition in these reports, pitching and defense are half of the game.  On Tuesday Chad Jenkins and Asher Wojciechowski pitched well to lead their teams to victory.  Aaron Sanchez pitched well, Justin Nicolino was OK, but the bullpen lost the Lugnuts game in the ninth.  The Las Vegas pitching staff had pitched well during their road trip but once they came back to the sin city, their ERA's have balloooned.  Scott Richmond was yesterdays victim.

Offensively, Jake Marisnick and Mike McDade hit their first home runs of the season.  Anthony Gose and AJ Jimenez had two run triples as part of a two hit day.  Jon Talley stayed hot with three more hits.

The Jays head to Baltimore off a four game sweep of the Royals. Baltimore meanwhile is only a game behind Toronto for the division lead, despite dropping two of three to the Angels over the weekend. I spent the last Advance Scout going on about how the Jays always kill the Orioles, and the Jays were subsequently lucky to escape with one W, so perhaps some hubris is in order this time.

In any case, I'll do some brief housekeeping before going out strong on some word play. You may have noticed that we aren't doing This Day in Baseball or Game Recaps - the Advance Scout has sort of taken the place of each of these things, so please do feel free to discuss all the games in a series, or other random baseball related events, in these Advance Scout threads, even if they are up to four days old. We basically decided to put more effort into one thread once every three days rather than less effort into three daily threads. Everyone seems to have picked up on this, so, great! And now to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before: The Advance Scout!

Lansing and Dunedin got the pitching and the wins Monday night.  As for Las Vegas, never mind!

Las Vegas were the only winners, and that's unusual this season.  New Hampshire were rained out while the high flyers, Dunedin and Lansing lost.  Jesse Chavez pitched well for Las Vegas and David Rollins pitched well in a losing cause for Lansing.  I have added some notes to the team reports to add some meat to a light reporting day on the farm.

Three wins in four tries for the affiliates as Travis Snider continued to mash and Noah Syndergaard struggled.

Raise your hand if you had the ChiSox's Philip Humber in your office pool as the next to throw a MLB Perfect Game. Sox just won it, 4-0 on the first perfect game to end on a controversial call of a swinging third strike that, on a full count, bounced to the backstop but was completed catcher-to-first-base. Yowza.

Congratulations on the unlikeliest office pool win in, well, ever ...

Only Dunedin (12-2), who lead their North division in the Florida State League were on the win side of things Friday night, continuing what has become a 5 game win streak.  The other leader in the Jays farm system is Lansing who lost Friday, but remain on top of the Eastern division of the Midwest League with a 12-3 record.  New Hampshire went down Friday morning, sinking to a 6-9 record and now sit third in the Eastern division of the Eastern League.  Las Vegas lost, settling into third place of the PCL Pacific South division with a record of 4-12. 

Notably, the long ball lumber was largely silent Friday, with Jonathan Diaz of New Hampshire hitting the only round tripper on the farm, a 2 run blast.  He was due. His last homer was in August of last year.

The Jays predictably lost the two tough games against the Rays to lose their series. The Royals have lost seven straight, and six at home, to sit at 3-9. So, hey Jays fans, it could be worse.

It's the weekend, so let's get down to business with a quick advance scout.

One ill concieved click of the mouse and an hour and a half's work disappears into the either. so what was a creative and winsome minor league update is now gone, replaced by a cold blunt businesslike recounting of facts. More's the pity.

It's been a while since the last Boxcast episode, but it's a while since anything was particularly exciting 'round here. Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLBTR dropped by and we talked about the recent moves, the AL East as it stands, and what it's like to cover the GM Meetings as an internet journalist.

Subscribe here. Listen here.

Las Vegas lost their bats at crucial points in last night’s game. Dunedin suffered a slow loss as their opponents chipped away and came back to win. Meanwhile, Deck McGuire shook off a couple of sub-par starts and turned in a fine performance for New Hampshire.