Pitching was the name of the game Friday, the Jays pitchers had a one hitter, a two hitter and a three hitter as the affiliates recorded four wins in five games.  Four Lansing pitchers combined on a one hitter.  Lansing themselves had only four hits but two of them were round trippers.  The GCL Jays had three pitchers combine on a two hitter.  The Jays had only five hits but one of them was a three run home run by Michael Crouse.  Three Fisher Cat hurlers combined on a three hitter and the hitters took it from there.  Auburn won a slug fest while Las Vegas lost despite a big night from Brett Wallace.

Dunedin and the DSL Jays were rained out.

Travis Snider had another monster of a game while Kyle Drabek didn't do so bad himself either. The whole thing shook out in a 3-3 night, and there were a couple of interesting performances.

We'll put it back together, raise up a giant ladder, with love and trust and friends and hammers, this summer. We're gonna lean this ladder up against the water tower, climb to the top and drink and talk, this summer.

One and Five: What a Wednesday on the farm, seventeen innings but  no cigar for Dunedin.  A Lugnut “W” and  “Ls” for the GCL Jays, New Hampshire and Las Vegas.  Our boys were outhit 62-46 and it showed.

The Jays ran into the good Zack Greinke and lost their series with the Royals.

We all know that prospect development in baseball is an uncertain and rocky process.  First round picks flame out and never make it to the major leagues.  Twentieth round picks or similar undrafted longshots do make it from time to time.  There is a saying in baseball development that in any year one third of your prospects will improve, one third will fall back and one third will stagnate. 

Last year was not a good one for the Blue Jays under this measure.  Approx one half of Jays prospects fell back last season while only about one sixth jumped ahead.  That might be why the Jays now have a new farm director and a new scouting director, not to mention a new GM.

So how are the Jays prospects doing in 2010?  Let's start with the Jays top 30 prospects for 2009, as selected by Batters Box.  We will also include the players obtained in the Halladay trade. 

The bats got the job done for three wins south of the border while the pitching down in the Dominican led to another victory on a 4-2 night for the affiliates.

Do you know what today is? Besides two days before the always highly-anticipated Pi Approximation Day (22/7)? Well, the trade deadline is coming up soon, but most of the Jays' trade assets are still with the team. Therefore, I declare today Wild Trade Speculation Day!!!!

Ooh, "The Emausculator". Can we start using that? (Sorry, I'm just feeling a little left out after Jordan Bastian came up with the Yunel Bomber tonight on Twitter. Genius.) Anyway, Monday night's games featured some bottom-of-the-ninth drama, and the affiliates came out with a 3-3 night, though if you count the DSL things tip in our favour.

In case you missed it on Facebook today. intrepid Bauxite Mike Moffatt reports, using Extremely Professional Journalist third-person language ...

"Mike Moffatt just hit his first home run -- at age 33. His 25-year plan of lulling the opposition into a false sense of security just paid off." Another Bauxite quickly posed the undying journalistic snideness, "Quick math tells me you will catch Aaron (the real leader) in AD 20,885. Bring it on!" Moffatt modestly responded, "Nope, that's it for me. I'll be forever tied with Duane Kuiper."

So in this the year of the Blue Jay Roundtripper, congratulations to our own Mike Moffatt, who now owns as many 2010 home runs as Yunel Escobar (TOR edition), Nick Green, Jarrett Hoffpauir and Mike McCoy combined. Hoo-rah!

The Jays have 35 home games remaining and 35 road games. Their future looks like this:

Well, there he goes again.  Love him or hate him, JP Ricciardi was always a good quote.  Wednesdays with JP on the Fan 590 were interesting because JP would speak his mind.  Sometimes that was good and sometimes it got him into trouble.  On Friday last JP spoke with WEEI in Boston and he had some things to say about three of the Jays top relievers.   He had praise for one and he slammed another.  And he also had a couple of teasers of trades not made.  Can you figure out who he is talking about?

I remembered that when I was in Dunedin this spring I had taken pictures of some the kids who ended up in Auburn or in the GCL.  Here are those pictures.

The affiliates won two out of five on a day when most of the pitchers left their best stuff at home.

Saturday both day and night on farm was a disappointment with only teams from towns starting with an “L” getting the "W's". Overall our minor league teams were 2 and 4.  Las Vegas took advantage of the longball and Lansing dominated with 1 hit pitching.  The rest of the farm suffered from either weak hitting or weak pitching or both.