The Farm Boys from the west made us proud.  Now, maybe our guys in the east can step it up for the rest of the weekend.

On a mostly quiet night on the farm, the clear offensive standout was Anthony Gose, and Travis Snider continues to demand the attention of decision makers in Toronto.

That title might be the thoughts in Alex Anthopoulos' mind today as he reviews the rotation.  I am not sure if everyone caught the subtext to the news of Drew Hutchison's visit to the doctor.  He is deciding whether to have Tommy John surgery now or try and rehab in the short term knowing he will probably have to have it later.  Kyle Drabek has had his TJ and is in recovery.  Meanwhile Jesse Litsch has had another operation and is out for the season.  Sergio Santos and Dustin McGowan are still not pitching.

Based on all these news items the Blue Jays have starting pitching problems for the rest of the year, but also for 2013.

New Hampshire was the lone winner on the farm last night as the affiliates lost by 1 run, 2 runs, were shutout, were postponed and had an off day.

All six affiliates won on this night and pitching was the reason.  Among the six teams only two hitters had three hits, namely Ryan Goins and Wuilmer Becerra.

On the pitching front Andrew Carpenter pitched seven shutout innings for Las Vegas.  Chad Jenkins pitched six shutout innings for NH.  Asher Woj pitched six strong innings for Dunedin.  Javier Avendano, Nick Purdy, Daniel Norris and Alberto Tirado each shutout the opposition in their innings.  Joe Musgrove gave up one run in his four innings.

You may have noticed some problems accessing Da Box over the past 12-24 hours. This is because we recently switched servers to a faster, more reliable one. Unfortunately that comes with the obligatory teething pains, meaning you might not have been able to post comments until now. Sorry for the downtime! Please let us know in this thread of any further issues you find.

That's because no one else sure as hell did on Monday!  It was a light night on the minor league front with Las Vegas, New Hampshire and Lansing having the night off.

Brett Lawrie makes his (figurative) return to Milwaukee as the Jays make their way to the Badger State for their penultimate interleague series of 2012. By my count Toronto is 6-6 so far against the Senior Circuit, and the Brewers and Marlins (next series) are the two weakest foes the Jays will face, so they stand a decent chance of posting a winning record against the NL, a heretofore rare occurrence for the boys in blue. With that being said, as of right now MLB.com lists the Jays Tuesday and Wednesday starters as TBD, and the Jays have lost 10 straight in Milwaukee going back to 1996, so really, anything is possible.

The affiliates managed two wins on the night but there were many exciting performances on this day.

All four starters went five innings on Saturday and allowed a combined two runs. That'll win you some ballgames.

Only Vancouver made the grade Friday in their season opener against Spokane and put up the evening’s First Star.  All it took was 4 RBIs and a Homer.  Lansing’s Kevin Paterson also put up a pair of HRs and got 3 RBIs but came up a run short versus Great Lakes.

There has been a lot of talk about how the pen has been used lately. Is Farrell using it appropriately or is he giving the highest leverage outings to the worst pitchers? Lets see.

The Phillies are in town for the weekend, but due to injury and scheduling Toronto only gets one of Philadelphia's big 3, Cliff Lee. Lee is winless in 10 starts despite ERAs and FIPs right around 3; though the Phillies offense really isn't that bad for the NL, it's no longer the juggernaut it once was. Philadelphia and Toronto are actually in pretty similar positions as we speak, albeit on differing sides of a curve. Toronto's been a game better, but both teams are hanging around just under .500, with positive run differentials, and yet both reside in the cellars of their tough respective divisions, 6.5 and 9 games out with lots of teams to catch. At some point in the next month both teams are going to have to decide whether they should go for it, whether they're going to just hold on, or whether to pack it in for the season. I say that both teams are at differing points in the curve because for Toronto this was supposed to be their first season on the cusp of something; they have a young team, plenty of talent in the minors, and look to be on the way up. The Phillies are the mirror image of this. This year or the next might be the last in which they can realistically hold things together. They're old, and in the offseason they're going to have to pay Cole Hamels $20 million a year, at least. Much of their young talent has been used up bringing players like Hunter Pence or Roy Halladay over, and these guys are only getting older.

So, what to do?

Kyle Drabek has a strained UCL and has hit the DL.  There has been no news on how long Drabek might be out of action.   Brett Cecil will start on Sunday in Morrow's spot.  Cecil last pitched on Tuesday so he was in line for this start unless Alvarez was moved up.  The Jays might have an announcement regarding next Tuesday's starter later although, because that involves a second roster move, the announcement might not be made until Sunday.

The final short season rosters were announced today.  There are not many surprises.  A lot of the 2011 draftees head to Bluefield while the younger 2012 draftees and most of the recent Latino signed players stay in the GCL.  Bluefield's line-up should include five 19 year olds, Dwight Smith, Jacob Anderson, Christian Lopes, Santiago Nessy and Matt Dean as well as 20 year old Dickie Thon Jr.  The pitching line up includes Daniel Norris, Kevin Comer, Joe Musgrove, Jeremy Gabryszwski and Roberto Osuna.

The GCL roster includes DJ Davis, Anthony Alford, Dawel Lugo, Gabriel Cenas, Jairo Labourt and Alberto Tirado.  Mark Biggs stays in the GSL as does Adonys Cardona whio has been injured.