I noticed that Brandon McGee, the Jays 4th round draft choice this season, has yet to pitch for Auburn.  Anyone have any idea why he's been inactive thus far?

He threw a lot of innings in college so the Jays are being cautious with him... He has started the season on the DL, although he has no specific injury. He won't pitch many innings this summer.

Actually, I just got the answer to this yesterday.  The Jays are just being conservative with Magee after pitching 100+ innings this year at Bradley.  He's with Auburn now and he'll probably pitch a little bit.

This is pretty typical of the Jays with their pitchers - last year Romero didn't pitch much after being drafted and Jackson & Purcey were the same way the prior year.

Small point, his name is Magee and Marc has it right.  Look for the Jon Lalonde interview going live at 11 am.

There will also be an interview with Dane Johnson, the Blue Jays minor league roving pitching instructor, tomorrow.  Johnson mentions there that Jesse Litsch was somewhat similar last season, the Jays were concerned about his workload in college.

When I was in Syracuse last week Rick Langford, the Chiefs pitching coach, told me they are trying to have Banks throw a cutter.  Right now Banks' fastball is too straight.  Although Josh has great control, the better hitters at AAA can handle the fastball on the outside corner and hit it out.  A cutter would give Banks a second fastball that looks like the other one and keep hitters off balance.

I followed a fair bit of Banks' game on Gameday.  He seems to be able pitch effectively up in the strike zone, but he gets in trouble when he's right down Broadway, and that happens too often even on 0-2 pitches.  There's really no reason he couldn't be successful, but he needs work on the mental/pitching tactics side of the game. 

Ne Hampshire lost 7-0 today as Matt Garza, one of the Twins top prospects shut them down.  David Purcey gave up five runs in five innings.  Kurt Isenberg, in his new bullpen role, gave up two runs.

If the NH game had started at noon, David Purcey would have been sharp. Unfortunately for both he and myself, it was an 11 a.m. first pitch. Purcey walked Denard Span from a full count to lead off the game, Oeltjan singled on a hit and run after making Purcey throw at least 11 pitches, then stole third base without a throw when Purcey did nothing to hold him on second. Someone singled, he loads the bases, works out of it, blah blah. In all, it was a good 40-pitch inning to start the day. Taylor led off the second with a single, he scores on a single following a fielder's choice, and Matienzo puts one on the patio, 5-0 Rock Cats.

Purcey was consistently high and erratic threw the first two, was not checking runners and was lucky to escape with just the five runs allowed. He looked sharp in innings three through five, his breaking ball was a little soft, but he was locating much better. Isenberg pitched a solid sixth, but gave up two in the seventh to seal it.

Lind took, to me anyway, a tough error in the first when Oeltjan's single got tangled up in the visitor's bullpen.

I was impressed with Garza, his location was excellent, he was pitching ahead all day and featured a pretty good-looking hook.

Tomorrow is a 6:35 and I have no idea who is pitching because of the recent shuffle. Maybe Litsch, maybe Romero. We shall see. I also scored a pretty useless "in-the-show" card set, featuring the likes of has-beens Kevin Frederick, Tyrell Godwin, and Adam Peterson. Hooray, Fisher Cats coasters!

And of course I know that it should be through, not threw. $1 dogs and $5.50 beer makes for an expensive morning...