Five runs? Break up the Jays!

It wasn’t a very memorable night on the farm as the affiliates went 1-3 and were outscored 26-20 over the four games. Despite scoring twenty runs there weren’t too many noteworthy performances by the offence and several starters struggled, including one who didn’t make it out of the third inning. In between two strikeouts Travis Snider showed he might be slowly breaking out of his slump. Also, somewhat sad news out of Lehigh Valley as a former Blue Jay finds himself out of work.

Not sure if you noticed, but this week, His Aruban Largeness Sidney Ponson reappeared in the big leagues, throwing eight excellent innings in a win (actually his second start) for the Rangers over the Royals.

There have been 26 men to have played in the major leagues to this point with the given first or middle name "Sidney," and though Ponson may well be the biggest, that doesn't mean he's the best. Actually, if you search BaseballReference.com, you'll find ...

Only one win on the night, by Syracuse, and that involved Tracy Thorpe escaping from a bases loaded, no out jam.  Davis Romero continued to pitch well and Russ Adams was the offensive hero.  Jacob Butler drve in four runs for New Hampshire who lost by a lot.  The bullpen lost the game for Dunedin while Lansing were unable to come back from an early deficit.

No more excuses. If the Jays want to get back in this, they have to make a statement on this seven-game homestand against two division leaders. First on the chopping block are Ozzie's boys, led by their surprisingly competent starting rotation - and a surprising choice of leadoff hitter.

Whew.

All of the affiliates had the lumber going on Thursday.  The only team not to record double digits in hits were the Lugnuts who had nine, three of them and two triples for Kevin Ahrens.  Justin Jackson was back to help the offense get going.  New Hampshire had fourteen hits with most of the hitters contributing.  Syracuse and Dunedin had twelve and ten hits respectively but both lost due to poor pitching.

Today's poll got me thinking about young outfields -- not individual outfielders, but entire outfields. So here's a question ... who had the very best?

Strict parameters: all three starters aged 25 or younger and at least two (preferably three) starting-quality backups under the age of 30.

Simple enough? I have done absolutely zero research on this, relying entirely on my memory, so am probably missing several obvious candidates. Anyway, my top candidate, as much as I hate to admit it, is easily ...

There's an old adage in sports that a team is never as good as it looks when it's winning and never as bad as it looks when it's losing.  Not, that I'm finding much comfort in that this morning.

The Chiefs won easily but the game had a rare occurance, Sergio Santos made the first and second outs of an inning.  New Hampshire and Dunedin faced top pitching prospects with mixed results.  Brett Cecil made his AA debut and had a poor start with a good finish.  Lansing lost to make it a 2-2 day.

Well, that sucks.

One of the Jays top pitching prospects took a big step forward, another took a step back and another is taking another step up the minor league rung as Brett Cecil will make his AA debut this evening.  Meantime, the three affiliates in action managed to bat 1.000 in the win column. 

With the young season maturing, the BBFL divisions start to take on some shape, so now seems a good time to start our weekly updates.

We have collectively tried to come up with a Manager's Box for John Gibbons.

"Don't you know how hard all this is?"
-- Ted Williams

During these recent difficult days, I thought it might be helpful if we reflected upon the words of some older, wiser head. Much older than even my own, and much, much wiser: