After beating down everyone's favorite perennial underdog team, the Jays look to keep the beat going against Boston's opponents in the Japan series, the Oakland A's. They'll face Chad Gaudin, two rookie lefties and one closer with huge splits.

Off day yesterday. The Jays face off against the A's and Chad Gaudin tonight. Burnett takes the hill for the good guys.

Word is that BJ Ryan and Scott Rolen are right on track for their returns.

Two out of the three farm teams in action used home field advantage to their advantage last night and two out of three major leaguers made encouraging rehab appearances in Dunedin.  Lansing joined Dunedin in the winners circle despite making a whopping five errors.  

I'm really not one of those old fogeys who grumbles that things were way better back in my day. I'm really not. I make a point of not being one of those guys.

Three victories in four games for the affiliates on Sunday with a couple of notable performances thrown in.

Jay Bruce struggled against the Syracuse pitching staff, but the Chiefs still lose in extras. Brandon Magee doesn’t quite have the start he hoped for in his Double-A debut and Lansing destroys Fort Wayne in a blowout win. And some guy called Ryan started for Dunedin, but only lasted an inning.

(Now update to include the second game of Syracuse's double-header, which I missed earlier.)

Whoever's out of hand, I'ma give 'em handles.
Light 'em up, blow 'em out like candles.

Jays win Friday, 6-3. Thomas gets the key hit and subjects us to the 'Hurts So Good' type headlines.

The Lugnuts racked up 18 hits tonight led by four each for Kevin Ahrens and Yohermyn Chavez.  Justin Jackson, Moises Sierra and Mike McDade also had good games.  Cody Crowell pitched well and Brian Pettway pitched his first professional inning.  Dunedin lost while the top two teams were rained out.

Hey Bauxites! Long time no see, and all those pleasantries. Yeah, I know, there hasn't been a Photo of the Day in forever, and it'll probably be awhile before you see another one of these. And it's a little different from the ones I've put up for you before.

This time around, I've made some iPhone / iPod Touch desktops for the technologically-inclined amongst you. Okay, I'll admit that I made these for myself and then I decided to share.

Here's Aaron Hill.

And here are Roy Halladay and Gregg Zaun.

Enjoy!

Big news, in case the home opener wasn't exciting enough on its own: the Blue Jays just announced that they have signed Alex Rios and Aaron Hill to contract extensions.

Rios will be a Blue Jay through 2014.

Hill's signing was a surprising twist. His contract takes him through 2011, and also contains three club options that could keep him in Toronto until 2014 as well.

Showtime.

After a tough start in New York, what better way to bounce back than by welcoming the defending champs to town for a weekend series?

Three games in, and already grumbling about the Jays batting order has begun. Mercy! I would say that the John Gibbons has been pretty conventional is his deployment of the troops, but of course conventional doesn’t always mean right. Everyone has their own ideas, naturally, but lets take a look at the current nine and a more statistically oriented bunch and see what we can come up with.

The minor league season opened with a bang on Thursday as the Syracuse Chiefs became the first club in the minors to take the field, as they faced the Cincinnati Reds' Triple-A affiliate, the Louisville Bats. The Chiefs also played the game on grass, after the old turf was removed from the stadium in the off-season.

That's a bit more like it.