Perhaps it was seeing the name Sam Horn appear, not once but twice, in the list of players who had hit grand slams against the Blue Jays that gave me this idea. (Horn hit just 62 HRs in his career, and most of them as an Oriole, by the way.)

Ricky Romero had on off-night and the Red Sox are a bad team to have an off night against.  Hopefully JP Arencibia's wrist will be OK.  Jonathan Papelboob does a lot of damage through hitting Jays batsmen, doesn't he?

Forgetting about the game, lets consider some questions:

Do the Jays have a chance?

What does the future hold for JP Arencibia?

You are the GM, where would you upgrade the team?

Do the Pirates have a chance?

Details below.

There were a lot of crooked numbers on a good night on the farm, plus a couple of multi-home run games.

Yes, yes. We're quite impressed. It is a very cool play, ending the game with an outfielder throwing the tying run out at home plate.

But seeing as how the Blue Jays seem to have decided to experiment with forsaking all manner of outstanding defensive plays by outfielders, at least for the foreseeable future, it's a good thing that there's an even better baseball play.

In the other games the Jays played in the middle of the night, the affiliates compiled a 3-4 record with one postponement.  Two of the top performers from Tuesday were pretty card sharp to cut into the MLU 3 Stars, do you believe it?

Update 7/6/2011 @ 12:05pm:  More stories on Extra Innings on K.C. Hobson, Lance Durham, Sean Henn, Chris Woodward and Kevin Howard.

Now that All-Star rosters have been announced, it's time for the annual griping. No one has incited more All-Star-based griping over the last few years than Derek Jeter, as he is continually voted in despite sometimes being nowhere near deserving, this year in particular.

Of course, performance isn't the only valid basis for selection to the game, and that's a whole other can of worms. I want to focus, though, on one particular argument that is often used to defend selections like Jeter.

Today's POTD looks at the two Jays who were designated for assignment over the Canada Day weekend - Juan Rivera and Jayson Nix.



Jayson Nix on JaysVision after his first plate appearance at the Dome April 2.  The second one produced a home run against Francisco Liriano that lifted Kyle Drabek and the Jays to a 6-1 victory over Minnesota April 2.  He went 1-for-2 with two walks and had a .500/.750/2.000 batting line after the game.

The farm only went 2-6, but the most interesting team on the farm prospect-wise won in a blowout, and there were plenty of good prospect performances.

The affiliates were 3-2 on the day. There were not many standout individual performances but a few solid team efforts.

Per Sportsnet's post-game show. Thanks to Dan Gordon for the heads-up.
 
Snider has "solidified the adjustments that we hoped he would," in John Farrell's words, and hit well against LH pitchers at Las Vegas. Farrell also went out of his way to praise Juan Rivera for the professionalism with which he handled the awkward role of playing several positions for a new organization after a long tenure in Anaheim.

The roster does seem to be taking shape.

Jose Bautista, who destroyed American League pitching in April and May, winning the AL Player of the Month award twice (tying an MLB-record five times in a row), has been announced as the leading vote recipient in Major League Baseball. It’s the first time in club history a Blue Jay has led the majors in All-Star Voting. He’ll the only Blue Jay to participate in the 2011 contest.

Despite overall scoring deficit just 4 runs (45 to 41) only the AAA and DCL Blue Jays affiliates, came out victorious on a Saturday night.  2 and 6 makes for a tough Saturday night. 

Nearly every game by the affiliates featured runs by one team or both in the first inning. Many of the games settled down after that and, aside from a 28-hit affair in Nevada and Lansing’s pitching allowing double-digit runs, most the games were relatively closely and not large-scoring affairs. Las Vegas, New Hampshire and Dunedin won, but then you have to go down to Bluefield to see another victory. The victories in Double and High-A saw strong pitching performances by prospects continuing to improve their ranking.

Three games against the team with the best record in the major leagues. Who have some pitchers you're probably familiar with....

Five wins in eight tries for the affiliates. Not a ton of notable offensive performances put two of the organization's top pitchers brought their good stuff.