Buster Olney, apparently busy using his Canadian phone minutes, reports that Vernon Wells will have offseason shoulder surgery to remove a cyst.

The Auburn Doubledays live to fight another day thanks to a dominating pitching performance from the hardest name to spell in the system.  The relief pitching wasn't half bad either and the offence finally showed up in the series.  It all boils down to a third and deciding game between Auburn and Oneonta tonight at Falcon Park. 

Buster Olney reports the Jays are close to signing John McDonald to a 2 year extension for about $2 million/year.

EDIT:  Jeff Blair reports that it's 2 years at $1.9 million/year.

Auburn began their playoff run Sunday with game one, on the road, in Oneonta.  Games two and three are back in Auburn Monday and Tuesday.  This was a close game, read on to see what happened.

Sports Illustrated is reporting that Troy Glaus received shipments of steroids in 2003 and 2004.  The story notes that Glaus was recovering from shoulder surgery at that time.  This is the latest name to emerge from various investigations of clinics and pharmacies in the US.  It is unclear what the repercussions could be for Glaus.

I hear many voices saying: "What in the name of Ruth is he talking about?".  And that's fine with me.  The sooner the Gleeman-Green bet is forgotten, the happier I will be.

Here's a dumb and pointless exercise. But when it comes to dumb and pointless exercises, I'm your man.

How bad have J.P. Ricciardi's drafts been?

The Lugnuts were eliminated tonight, while the Doubledays warmed up for the playoffs with a couple of longballs. 

We close out our Friday summaries with the hitters this week.  It has been a disappointing year for the hitters, with only Travis Snider shining and Yohermyn Chavez holding his own.

This is the last week of the minor leagues regular season and it is a good time to look back at 2007 and the performances of the top 30 Blue Jay prospects from a year ago. The Batters Box minor league team will produce this years top 30 list soon but many of these players will drop off the prospect lists. This is also a good time to evaluate how successful was the 2007 minor league season. In summary this has been a disappointing season for the minor league system, many more prospects have regressed than progressed. The one positive aspect is many of the prospects moving ahead are in, or close to, the major leagues.

When you add his 22 minor league innings to his 137.3 major league innings, one realizes that Dustin McGowan has pitched 159.3 innings this season. His career high is 153 in 2003. Since then he’s thrown 31 (2004), 101.3 (2005) and 111.3 (2006). The Jays management team currently is weighing the risk of overworking his arm and a potential injury against preparing McGowan for a full season in the rotation next year and, hopefully, a September pennant race.

Travis Snider provided the only remotely positive news on the minor league front, as the affiliates went 0-2.

One of da Box's founding fathers, Jordan Furlong, sends us a pinch-hit on the end of baseball in Ottawa. Thanks for everything, Jordan, and take it away.

I just posted a piece where I suggested that Walt Jocketty trading Danny Haren and Daric Barton for Mark Mulder looks like one of the worst transactions perpetrated by a current general manager.

What are the other contenders?

If you were paying attention last week, you knew this Hall of Names was coming ... completing All-Birthday teams for my nuclear family, after seeing teams for Mom (Feb. 17), Dad (Oct. 20), big sister Eileen (Aug. 27) and even myself (July 20), we finish up with the oldest sibling -- and frankly, the one who likes baseball the least in the family, though maybe she'll still appreciate this roster -- in big sister Mary.

So let's see if a decent team can be built from the 56 men who have played in the big leagues bearing a birth date of September 5.

New Hampshire lost a 7-4 decision to Portland to lose out on a shot at the playoffs.