Almost a full slate of games today as all the affiliates but the Gulf Coast League squad were in action. Short season, not quite Northwest League, but definitely not GCL, Bluefield played their first game of the season topping the visiting Greeneville squad. Gus Pierre—all two walks of him—has broken the High-A voodoo and played tonight for Dunedin. He didn’t help much as Dunedin was shutout by Daytona. A.J. Jimenez continues to treat Double-A like Brennan treats Dale in Step Brothers before they realize they’re BFF (Note: this means that Jimenez continues to swing the bat well). New Hampshire lost. Anthony Gose sat today, not surprising considering the shenanigans of last night and the dressing down by Marty Brown. Buffalo lost a tight one this afternoon and have struggled mightily recently. Way down south Ronniel Demorizi, a bonus baby from a few years back went deep twice. He’s got some nice numbers down there and should graduate from the island at the end of the year. The DSL Jays won. Who am I forgetting? Oh, Vancouver won.

Ricky Romero had his third respectable start in a row for Buffalo, in a game where Mauro Gomez hit another home run.  Jose Reyes continued to get back into game-shape with Dunedin before he returns to Toronto in the near future.

A 3-2 night for the affiliates featured two overtime victories and a six-run rally in the ninth. Dunedin needs a victory today to clinch their first-half division title. The bad news was a shutout loss and an overtime loss.

The affiliates took three out of four Monday night. I got to witness the lone loss in person!

Today was a new day for New Hampshire, they forgot about giving up 16 runs yesterday and their bats put together 22 runs.  Marcus Stroman had another fantastic start, and Mauro Gomez hit another home run.

Thad Weber pitched seven no-hit innings and Buffalo went on to one hit Pawtucket. It was bad news everywhere else. Sean Nolin was hit by a batted ball in the first inning and the relievers were hit all over the park. Lansing had only two hits and lost. Saturday was the FSL all-star game. Many D Jays took part. Vancouver ouhit Tri-City 10-4 but lost.

Hits were scarce on Friday. The Bisons were one hit in game one of a doubleheader. They were two hit in the nightcap until the sixth inning, but then they broke out with seven runs. They finished with eight hits and a second loss. New Hampshire had five hits and lost. Lansing had five hits too but one of them was a three run home run by Emilio Guerrero. Vancouver had four hits, scored nine runs, and won. Ricky Romero pitched well, six shutout innings. Roberto Osuna also pitched well. For some reason Claudio Vargas was called on to close out game 2 of the Bisons doubleheader and he certainly did nothing of the kind.

Only two affiliates in action tonight as the weather that knocked out the Jays game in Chicago last night seems to have taken with it some more victims further east. Buffalo and New Hampshire were out of action. Both affiliates that did play won tonight as Dunedin hit their way to victory down in Florida, while Lansing won on the back of some strong pitching.

The extended spring training season ended last Thursday.  Everyone gets a few days off around the draft and then the new signees show up this week.  The Vancouver roster ships outs one of these days and next week Bluefield and the GCL Jays start their seasons.  I received a copy of the stats for extended spring training.  Before we look at the stats we should look back at the stats from extended in 2012 to see how predictive they were.

The thread for the hitters stats is here.  The thread for the pitchers is here.

The Dominicans won a game in regulation and the Lugnuts only needed half an inning to win another. Other than that, it was an ugly Tuesday on the farm as the affiliates went 2-5.

Monday saw a pair of one-run losses for the only affiliates in action. The Bisons were rained out and the boys in the Dominican saw their game suspended.

Tonight marked the first time in over a month that Robert Osuna pitched for Lansing.  Marcus Stroman started on the mound today vs Erie, and performed well.

Kramer Champlin came within one out of a perfect game (7 inning variety). The Lansing twitter feed said the single that broke up the perfect game was a tough hop single past Emilio Guerrero, some thought it could have been scored an error. Lansing got the win to complete the doubleheader sweep. Ben White pitched a shutout in game one. Sean Nolin had nine strikeouts and the Fisher Cats had a three run, two run and a solo home run. Dunedin played three innings and got a win, Rajai Davis had a triple. Buffalo used fifteen hits to win.

Although Champlin wasn't perfect the affiliates were.

AJ Jimenez is back off the DL and recorded four hits. With Austin Bibens-Dirxk doing his part by fanning twelve, Dunedin won. New Hampshire also won a close game on two solo home runs and shutout pitching. Buffalo split a doubleheader with Ricky Romero pitching in the win. Lansing were beaten up.

Only two affiliates in action tonight as two affiliates suffered weather malfunctions. The DSL affiliate played today, but of course we don’t know what happens until a day later. It’s draft night so wild prediction; Richard Urena hit for the cycle and Dean Bell went 1-5, striking out his first four at-bats then hitting the game winning homerun in the bottom of the ninth. His dad was proud. In the real world Deck McGuire had a somewhat typical start for our AA affiliate—cruising through five innings before the wheels came off in the sixth. In fairness he was up to a hundred pitches by that point. The Fisher Cats lost 7-2. The other team playing tonight probably wished they too had been weathered out. Lansing fell to the visiting San Diego affiliate. They committed four errors in this one and if not for a light-hearted comeback attempt in the eighth, there wouldn’t be much here to take home.