The affiliates went 4-1 yesterday evening with only Auburn’s one-run loss to Williamsport spoiling the night. There was impressive pitching by Blue Jays farmhands in both Triple-A and the Gulf Coast League, while Lansing had one of its best offensive nights of the year, despite a lack of production from its most feared hitter.

Happy Canada Day, boys and girls. The Jays will spend this holiday weekend in Seattle trying to cool off the rampaging Mariners, who just swept Boston in a thrilling three-game set. Seattle trails Wild Card leader Cleveland by 2.5 games, and has 4.5 games on the Blue Jays. The Jays can't catch the M's this weekend, but they do have a great opportunity to do some damage against some of Seattle's weaker pitchers.

It is time for the pitchers this week. The farm affiliates went 3-4 on the evening.

Frank Thomas hit #500 today, a 3 run shot off of Carlos Silva in the first inning.

Eligible players are ones who have signed and played at least one game in the minors, and are not currently on the major league roster. Alphabetically, the players I considered are: Adams, Ahrens, Arencibia, Josh Bell, Butler, Cannon, Diaz, Eiland, Hatch, Liuzza Jeroloman, Majewski, Mathews, Olmedo, Patterson, Santos and Snider. My top ten are:

1. Snider
2. Santos
3. Arencibia
4. Ahrens
5. Mathews
6. Olmedo
7. Jeroloman
8. Eiland
9. Diaz
10. Patterson

After Snider, there is plenty of room for disagreement. What do you think? I'll tabulate the votes and post the results after Canada Day.

A few odds, a few ends. Consider the mighty Red Sox.

...it doesn't matter what his name is, Brett Cecil can pitch. The farm affiliates went 4-2.

A 2-3 night for the affiliates.  Lansing had the best night winning 16-9.

Apparently, Nomar Garciaparra, who not long ago was considered a mortal lock for Hall of Fame enshrinement, will move over to the hot corner for the L.A. Dodgers later this week. James Loney will take over at 1B.

Known, of course, primarily as a shortstop, Garciaparra has played nothing but 1B for the Dodgers since signing as a FA before the '06 season. So this move from Garvey Gardens to 3B and Cey-derville is the second such major shift of his career.

Which leads us to these Questions of the Day:

The affiliates go 2-4 in what was an interesting night on the farm. Ricky Romero made his long awaited return to the mound, there was an inside the park homer in New Hampshire, a fan favourite was plunked twice in Triple A action, and so were three Gulf Coast League Blue Jays, all in the same inning. Find out more in today's episode of the Minor League Update.

Schroedinger's Bat re-take the lead from the Eastern Shore Birds in the Barfield division, The Trembling Wilburys inch another step closer to the London Tigers in Carter with the Megalomaniacs charging hard behind them and perennial contenders the Austin Senators move into second behind the Magic 9 in Alomar.

Recently, I figured out why people buy lottery tickets.

Incredibly, this four-game series will be the Jays' third straight trip to Minnesota without facing the best pitcher in baseball, and their second straight in which they'll only have to deal with one of M and M. However, their hitters will still be challenged: they'll see two killer Bs with good K/BBs and a pair of the stingiest control pitchers around. These may not quite be the real Twins, but this is still going to be difficult.

As promised, after the recent All-Phillips family name Hall of Names treatise, we're back to examine how the first-named Philips (and Phillips, and even the Filomenos and others) of the world come together for a HoN treatment.

There have been more than 100 players in MLB history who carried the name "Phil," in some form, as a first or middle name, even as we discount the few who went by "Phil," even though it wasn't actually anywhere on the birth certificate. (We're looking at guys like you, William Franklin "Phil" Irwin and Pinson Lamar "Phil" McCullough!)

Anyway, even though the first-named Phils outnumber their middle-named counterparts by more than two-to-one, it turns out we can build rosters for both of them. Let's start at the beginning, then, and meet ...

Wow, was I wrong.