In recent years the Toronto Blue Jays organization has not had a lot of success developing Latin America talent. In recent years, though, the club has returned to its roots and has started to invest heavily in that area once again.

Under former general manager J.P. Ricciardi the Dominican Summer League team was largely ignored. Any player that was lucky enough to receive a visa to come and play in the U.S. was used mostly as an organizational solider or roster-filler. The 2006 DSL team was a little different. A number of players caught the attention of the Player Development Staff and received brief opportunities (Bartolo Nicolas, Yensy Perez, Carlos Vasquez, Jimmy Gonzalez) but two pitchers had eye-opening seasons.

It was a very good night for the Jays' farm system (4-0), and for top prospects in particular. Zach Stewart, Deck McGuire, Eric Thames, Carlos Perez and Travis d'Arnaud all had good games, but none was as good as Mike McCoy.

The 2004 amateur draft did not go as planned for the Toronto Blue Jays. Under the watchful eye of then general manager J.P. Ricciardi, the club followed a college-player-heavy approach (47 of the 52 picks came from a four-year or community college). The club had two first round picks that season, as well as an extra third-round selection. With its first two choices, the organization nabbed two college left-handed starting pitchers: David Purcey out of the University of Oklahoma and Zach Jackson out of Texas A&M University. Purcey was traded today to the Oakland Athletics for former Jays prospect and triple-A reliever Danny Farquhar.

The Jays affiliates won two games and lost three. The Lansing Lugnuts split a double-header with the Dayton Dragons and the two teams combined for 29 runs.

A pitching exhibition by Mike MacDonald leads the 51s to glory over Fresno, and the Baby Jays’ bats bring it on for Dunedin over cross bay rival Tampa.

The good guys on the farm turned in a 2 win and 2 loss evening.

Lansing won a squeaker, New Hampshire did too.  Las Vegas went down despite 10 hits, scoring only once.  Dunedin Jays managed 6 hits, but were shut out.

The affiliates went 2-2 in about the least exciting way possible. Lansing was actually able to play, but apparently didn't get the memo until it was too late.

It was a .500 night on Junior's Farm.   A strong pitching performance was not fully rewarded but it all worked out in the end and you should have seen the poker men in the form of the third baseman and center fielder of the future.  The winning affiliates put together ninth inning rallies while the other two battled back to tie their contests only to lose, with one game being decided in overtime.  Let's go down to take a look at what happened Tuesday night.

The farm went 2-2 on Monday night, and one Box favourite reached base five times. Can you guess who???!?! Probably not, because it's definitely not the guy in the title.

A 1-for-3 night for the affiliates doesn't sound that great but three bullpen implosions kept the squads from going 4-0. There were also some impressive hitting performances in low-A and a nice pitching line for a 2010 No. 1 draft pick in high-A.

The impressive bats on the top part of farm made us proud Saturday.  Las Vegas and New Hampshire were strong at the plate and on the mound.  Dunedin suffers 3rd loss in as many outings.

Winners Las Vegas and New Hampshire had loud lumber with 10 hits while Dunedin managed only 5 and came up the evening’s loser.  Lansing had their second postponement in as many nights due to field conditions (that soggy Michigan permafrost is really something).

Well that wasn't exactly how you want to kick off a season. One affiliate couldn't get their field in order while the other three should have followed suit. Let's try it again tomorrow, shall we?

The minor league season gets under way tonight with four Blue Jay affiliates in action.  With the parent club en route to the west coast tonight the minors can get our full attention.

Zach Stewart starts in AA tonight and Gregor Chisholm got the story on why Stewart is in AA:

"We talked about that at length," Anthopoulos said. "We figured with a guy like Zach it won't be the worst thing in the world to continue to work on certain things, because we know it's a tough environment in Las Vegas."