The Jays head to Baltimore off a four game sweep of the Royals. Baltimore meanwhile is only a game behind Toronto for the division lead, despite dropping two of three to the Angels over the weekend. I spent the last Advance Scout going on about how the Jays always kill the Orioles, and the Jays were subsequently lucky to escape with one W, so perhaps some hubris is in order this time.

In any case, I'll do some brief housekeeping before going out strong on some word play. You may have noticed that we aren't doing This Day in Baseball or Game Recaps - the Advance Scout has sort of taken the place of each of these things, so please do feel free to discuss all the games in a series, or other random baseball related events, in these Advance Scout threads, even if they are up to four days old. We basically decided to put more effort into one thread once every three days rather than less effort into three daily threads. Everyone seems to have picked up on this, so, great! And now to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before: The Advance Scout!

Lansing and Dunedin got the pitching and the wins Monday night.  As for Las Vegas, never mind!

Las Vegas were the only winners, and that's unusual this season.  New Hampshire were rained out while the high flyers, Dunedin and Lansing lost.  Jesse Chavez pitched well for Las Vegas and David Rollins pitched well in a losing cause for Lansing.  I have added some notes to the team reports to add some meat to a light reporting day on the farm.

Three wins in four tries for the affiliates as Travis Snider continued to mash and Noah Syndergaard struggled.

Raise your hand if you had the ChiSox's Philip Humber in your office pool as the next to throw a MLB Perfect Game. Sox just won it, 4-0 on the first perfect game to end on a controversial call of a swinging third strike that, on a full count, bounced to the backstop but was completed catcher-to-first-base. Yowza.

Congratulations on the unlikeliest office pool win in, well, ever ...

Only Dunedin (12-2), who lead their North division in the Florida State League were on the win side of things Friday night, continuing what has become a 5 game win streak.  The other leader in the Jays farm system is Lansing who lost Friday, but remain on top of the Eastern division of the Midwest League with a 12-3 record.  New Hampshire went down Friday morning, sinking to a 6-9 record and now sit third in the Eastern division of the Eastern League.  Las Vegas lost, settling into third place of the PCL Pacific South division with a record of 4-12. 

Notably, the long ball lumber was largely silent Friday, with Jonathan Diaz of New Hampshire hitting the only round tripper on the farm, a 2 run blast.  He was due. His last homer was in August of last year.

The Jays predictably lost the two tough games against the Rays to lose their series. The Royals have lost seven straight, and six at home, to sit at 3-9. So, hey Jays fans, it could be worse.

It's the weekend, so let's get down to business with a quick advance scout.

One ill concieved click of the mouse and an hour and a half's work disappears into the either. so what was a creative and winsome minor league update is now gone, replaced by a cold blunt businesslike recounting of facts. More's the pity.

It's been a while since the last Boxcast episode, but it's a while since anything was particularly exciting 'round here. Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLBTR dropped by and we talked about the recent moves, the AL East as it stands, and what it's like to cover the GM Meetings as an internet journalist.

Subscribe here. Listen here.

Las Vegas lost their bats at crucial points in last night’s game. Dunedin suffered a slow loss as their opponents chipped away and came back to win. Meanwhile, Deck McGuire shook off a couple of sub-par starts and turned in a fine performance for New Hampshire.

The teams with winning records won, and the teams with losing records lost.  Lansing got more great pitching and recorded another shutout.  Dave Rollins got the start for the Lugnuts.  There were many suggested names for that starting spot in Lansing and the selection of Rollins was a bit of a surprise, but the Jays staff know what they are doing.  Dunedin had to score eight runs to win as Sean Nolin had an off night.

Chad Jenkins had another bad start and his name, along with Deck McGuire's, has dispappeared from the list for fifth starter in Toronto.  New Hampshire were in a deep hole early from which they had little hope of escaping.  Las Vegas have had some tough losses this season and yesterdays was another one to add to the list.  They tied their game in the top of the ninth and then brought on their best reliever so far this season, Ryoto Igarashi, to hold the lead.  He couldn't and the 51's lost again.

After starting out gangbusters in sweeping the Yankees, the Rays have subsequently managed to lose two of three to the Tigers, then get it handed to them by the Red Sox. They lost the first three games of a four game set by a combined margin of 31-11, though they did salvage yesterday's finale 1-0 behind a fine effort from James Shields and sit at .500. However Tampa has the worst run differential in baseball and have scored the fewest runs of any team in the division. Of more concern perhaps is that their fine staff has been pretty poor so far, Shields aside. They're tied for the most runs allowed in baseball, and Tampa's non-Shields pitchers have now walked 39 batters in 62.2 innings, against 42 strikeouts. It's early, but that is, as the kids say, not good.

At least for Tampa's sake they get to face a familiar punching bag in the Blue Jays. Over the last four seasons the Rays are 47-25 against the home nine, which works out to about a 106 win pace over the course of a full season. All of this is a long winded way of setting up unstoppable force vs. immovable object - the Rays slow start vs. their traditional dominance of the Jays. Which will prevail?

Well, really, the Rays continued success against the Jays and their slow start are probably and definitely not statistically significant, respectively. Sometimes statistics are no fun though, which is why we have THE ADVANCE SCOUT.

The pitching gave the affiliates a chance to win all four games Monday.  It was a 2-2 night on the farm with the losses coming from a doubleheader sweep.

The Jays affiliates combined for a 2-1 record on the night, while one club got the night off thanks to Mother Nature.

April 15, 1947 -- the most inportant, significant debut by a rookie player in Major League Baseball history took place as the Boston Braves visited Ebbets Field to take on the Brooklyn Dodgers. Attendees at the game saw a lot of notable ballplayers that day -- Johnny Sain, Mort Cooper, Sibby Sisti, Tommy Holmes, Earl Torgeson, Bobby Bragan, Pee Wee Reese, Hugh Casey, Carl Furillo, Arky Vaughn, Dixie Walker, Pete Reiser, Eddie Stanky - plenty of All-Stars with a few future Hall of Famers mixed in. But none more significant than the young fella playing 1B and batting second for the Brooklyns.

Kid named Jack Roosevelt Robinson. Jackie.  #42 ... a number that, after this season, will never be worn by another major league baseball player again. After Mariano Rivera, perhaps fittingly the greatest closer to ever play the game, hangs up his spikes, that number, the one Douglas Adams once wrote was the answer to the great question of  Life, the Universe and Everything, will fade into retirement as well, to honor Robinson, not the greatest, but absolutely the most significant player ever to wear a big league uniform.

To mildly misquote the renowned Simon and Garfunkel tune, So here's to you, Mr. Robinson ...

Thank you, Jackie.