The Gashouse Gorillas, Baseball North and the Megalomaniacs lead the way in the early going.

The first-place blue birds return home to raise the curtain on the 19th season of baseball at the Dome, having survived a rollercoaster series in Tampa Bay minimally scathed. Hopefully they enjoyed it, because when the goosebumps-inducing pregame ceremonies are over and a raucous crowd welcomes redemption-bent A.J. Burnett to the hill, the Jays will find themselves battling a team whose personality resembles that of the very annoying Rays of about two years ago. Like those Rays, the Royals are still a couple of years away from unleashing the full brunt of their youth movement on the AL, but they do have a few highly-touted youngsters getting their feet wet. They also have more than enough scrappers and veterans to put up a fight against anyone when their pitching cooperates. What are the odds of that happening? Actually, in this series, better than you might think. There are no easy games in the AL.

On to the Advance Scout!

Hello, hockey fans in Canada and the United States.

I trust we now have your undivided attention?

Two wins in three contests. The Syracuse bullpen lost the game while Dunedin won in the ninth. New Hampshire flirted with disaster but Lee Gronkiewicz saved the day. Adam Lind, John-Ford Griffin, Wayne Lydon, Chip Cannon and Eric Kratz hit home runs.

Yeah, I hate when that happens.

Two games and two rainouts, again. But you’ll want to read about these.

So you know how in football, when the talking heads want to hint at an upset in a game without actually predicting it, they call it a "trap game" for the favorite because there are certain circumstances that have a leveling effect, right? Well, this series is about as close to a baseball equivalent as you can get. Somehow, the baseball gods conspired to throw Tampa Bay's top three starters at the Jays in the second series of the year. The Jays also lucked into the one night the Trop should actually sell out with an energetic, partisan crowd - the home opener. And finally, Gregg Zaun's right arm just happened to have a disastrous series right before a three-game set against the most aggressive baserunning team in the AL. Yeah, I'm just a little bit antsy about the Jays' chances this weekend. Viewer discretion is advised as we move on to the Advance Scout...

The minor league season opened up on a chilly note, with two weather-related postponements.  The farm affiliates split the other two.

The Jays were colded out yesterday.

The long awaited trade with the Phillies was Rosario for cash?  Apparently, $100,000 was the price.

I thought there would be several teams that could use Rosario, even for a long shot prospect in A ball, but I apparently thought wrong.

Hey, no one goes undefeated.

The most over-used and misunderstood phrase of any early baseball season is easily "on pace for." In fact, announcers around the majors are on pace to use that phrase forty-seven billion times this week (roughly, that is).

So let's over-use it in a misunderstood sort of way ourselves. For instance, did you realize that just one or two (or in one case three) games into the MLB season ...

The minors swing into action tomorrow.

Burnett vs Robertson, at 1:05 this afternoon. Curse these weekday afternoon games!

And we get a whole day to enjoy it.