Believe it or not it is mid-season in the minor leagues.  Lansing finished their first half season on Sunday.  Dunedin, strangely, have three first half games left after their all-star break.  Las Vegas and New Hampshire realize it could be a long second half unless they start to play a lot better.  Seeing how it is mid-season Marc Hulet and I reviewed the first half for most of the Jays top prospects.  You will see that there has not been a lot of movement among the prospects.  The jury is still out on the high schoolers drafted in 2007 and 2008, those players have to just play and you expect them to really show what kind of prospect they are in the year they turn 21 or 22.  Some of the Jays top ten prospects, such as JP Arencibia, David Cooper and Brad Emaus have had first halves to forget.  Several other lower ranked prospects such as Moises Sierra, Danny Farquhar, Trystan Magnuson and Tim Collins have down well in the first half.  Some of the Jays top prospects should lose their prospect status this season, Travis Snider, Brett Cecil and Ricky Romero will come out of the top ten with enough major league time.  With the struggles of some of the other top ten names and the good play of some of the lesser ranked prospects, ranking the Jays top ten prospects at seasons end might be a tough job.

Las Vegas and New Hampshire won, Lansing lost, Auburn were washed-out.  The FSL had their all-star game and Moises Sierra had three hits, Tim Collins pitched a shutout inning.  Randy Ruiz and Brian Dopirak wielded the lumber for their teams with three hits each.  Ruiz had two home runs, Dopirak one.

Three affiliates, in fact, were doomed by big innings, as Las Vegas was the only club to land in the win column.

Here's what I think I saw. The Jays went into a National League and swept the world champs. Vernon Wells had two big hits and a crucial defensive play late in the game.

I believe I'm now required to pee in a cup, right?

Today is opening day for the Auburn Doubledays with the GCL Jays starting next week.  The Jays have not signed their top six picks so the Auburn roster will likely change a lot over the next week or two as those players sign.  Usually the Jays are prompt in signing their number one pick, this year they appear to be slower.

Down on the farm the full-season teams went 2-2 with the top two teams victorious.  Marc Rzepczynski had a good start in what could be his final AA start.  He is rumoured to be headed to AAA to replace Cecil or Mills.

Kyle Ginley, Alan Farina and Marty McLeary were each activated and Ginley and Farina pitched.

So... where exactly does the Blue Jays pitching stand at the moment? Why don't we investigate.

Both Lansing and Dunedin put on impressive offensive displays, while Las Vegas received a great pitching performance from Brian Burres (no, really).

I was saving this for tomorrow, but with the prospect of three pitchers hitting the DL all at once, it seems best to add this information to the discussion.

John Feinstein wrote a book titled "Next Man Up" a few years ago.  The book followed the Baltimore Ravens for a season and the title of the book comes from the theme that football is a game of injuries.  Football is a tough, vicious, injury-causing game and teams are always looking for the next man up to replace someone who has to leave the game due to injury.  The Blue Jays current theme is Next Man Up. 

Four losses, four uninspiring pitching performances.  Fabio Castro and Luis Perez did not pitch badly but didn't pitch well enough to win.  Henderson Alvarez continued his slide backwards.  The four affiliates scored ten runs between them, two two's and two three's.  Not much to write about on this night.

Yesterday Joe Posnanski and Bill James had another of their interesting exchanges over at SI.com and this time the subject was the contemporary obsession with keeping pitch counts low.

I have some highlights from the discussion and - to justify my participation - some Data Tables!

Gonna free fall out into nothing
Gonna leave this world for a while

It was just about this time last season when a three week death spiral cost John Gibbons his job. What's different about this one?

Actually, Lansing was in Dayton, so that headline doesn't make any sense apart from the terrible pun. Lansing did beat up on the Aces though, to highlight a 2-1 night on the farm.

2-2 on Sunday for the affiliates.  Horrible nights for the Fisher Cats and Lugnuts were offset by a great start from David Purcey and some big bats for the D-Jays.

Has anyone else noticed that Brandon League has been absolutely lights out coming out of the bullpen this season?