Jeff Francis and Andrew Albers combined to throw eleven shutout innings against Pawtucket on Wednesday. The Bisons swept the doubleheader. New Hampshire lost despite nine strikeouts from Matt Boyd, who kept his ERA at zero. Dunedin had a walk off hit from Roemen Fields. Lansing scored in the top of the ninth and held on for the win. Chase De Jong had another good start.

Another two-homer performance in New Hampshire was the highlight of Tuesday's action on the farm which saw the affiliates post a 2-2 record.

The affiliates were 3-0 Monday but a big comeback will be needed later today to go 4-0.

The affiliates won four of five games. Both Dunedin and Lansing came from behind to win. David Harris led the offense for Dunedin, driving in three runs. Lansing scored in the ninth and tenth in a team effort. New Hampshire split a doubleheader with Matt Newman helping win game two. Danny Barnes is looking good. Buffalo recorded a shutout led by Randy Wolf, Chris Dickerson had two hits.

Pitching continued to be the name of the game. New Hampshire scored five runs. The other Jays teams scored five runs between them in four games. Jays pitchers allowed ten runs in five games. Scott Copeland, Starlyn Sureil and Shane Dawson were the best of the starters. KC Hobson hit his second home run of the season. Dickie Jo Thon also homered.

Here is your abbreviated weekend MLU. Two wins and one loss on Friday.

One win, one loss and one snowout? That is how the affiliates fared on Opening Day in the minors.

The minor league season starts on Thursday and the rosters were announced yesterday. As the season begins what should you look for with each team? Below I explain what I will be watching over the next couple of months. After that I tell you why you should buy the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays minor league handbook.

Today is the day that minor league rosters get announced. As I noted last week the Jays have locked down their process for releasing their minor league rosters after complaints from their affiliates. However all teams are headed to their respective cities and the rosters will get announced today. I will get a copy of all rosters but not until the teams have announced. I think the Jays have also asked their players not to tweet about their destinations as I have seen only a couple of definite roster tweets, namely Casey Lawrence headed to New Hampshire and Chase De Jong to Lansing.

The rosters for the full season minor league teams will be set this weekend. As the Jays put the various pieces in place there are several questions that are creating uncertainty for those rosters.

Here is a quick look at the latest happenings on the farm, Blue Jays style!

A quick trip over the border this past weekend led to the acquisition of the Baseball America 2015 Prospect Handbook. There are over 900 prospect files inside, including 30 of your Toronto Blue Jays hopefuls, which can be found after the jump.


Catcher Max Pentecost — the 11th pick of the 2014 draft — is rated the Jays' 5th best prospect according to Baseball America. That places the Kennesaw State alumni second among position players in the farm system.

The Blue Jays swapped left-handed pitchers with Colorado on Wednesday, sending Tyler Ybarra to the Rockies organization in exchange for Jayson Aquino.


Newest Blue Jays acquisition Jayson Aquino pitched for the Tri-City Dust Devils at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver in 2013.

2015 will be my twelfth year of minor league coverage for Batters Box. 2004, when it all started, seems like a long time ago, and in many ways it was. I remember the trip that got it all started. In the summer of 2004 Robert Dudek and I headed to Buffalo to see the Syracuse Chiefs play. We interviewed several players on that trip, names from the past. We talked to Stubby Clapp, Russ Adams, Gabe Gross, and Jason Kerschner.

The Blue Jays have announced their minor league coaching staffs for 2015. There are no changes for the Buffalo Bisons while the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Vancouver Canadians and the Bluefield Blue Jays will have the same managers again for 2015. There will be new men at the helm for Lansing as well as the Gulf Coast League and Dominican Summer League affiliates.


Jeff Ware has been promoted to Lansing to be the pitching coach for the Lugnuts in 2015. The former Jays hurler was the pitching coach in Vancouver in 2014.