The Jays take on Tampa Bay for a rare Friday to Monday, four game series. This series will survive hurricane Irene while other east coast series are being rearranged to avoid hurricane-outs.

DeWayne Wise has been claimed by the Jays on waivers to fill the CF hole. Colby Rasmus will go on the DL tomorrow. I guess Wise rated higher than Darin Mastroianni who has been left to his major league memories in Las Vegas. But seriously bball12 might have a point here, why didn't the Jays recall Mastro? It is not a vote of confidence in Mastro.

John Farrell is on the one day DL, he has been diagnosed with pneumonia. Under doctors orders Farrell will miss today's game and will probably be back tomorrow, but like all of us, he is day-to-day. Don Wakamatsu is in charge tonight.

A few days ago Farrell thought this team could win 88 games, I hope that doesn't mean the Jays play all the veterans in September to pad the team's record.

Four wins in seven tries for the affiliates on Thursday.

Jim Thome is the Cleveland Indians' all-time career home run leader with 334.

Now, Thome has been traded, via waiver claim for a PTBNL, to ... the Cleveland Indians!

Maybe the latest 600-homer guy can bring his career full-ciricle now and retire with the Tribe ... in the playoffs?

The ballot is now ready:

http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/

Thanks for participating!

What are the Blue Jays up to?

Mike Lavery at TheBaseballPage.com has an interesting take on what's up in The Mind of Anthopolous and even previews the 2012 Jay lineup. Give it a read and weigh in ... whatchathink, Bauxites?

Drew Hutchison and Noah Syndergaard made impressive debuts at higher levels, adding to what Nestor Molina had done on Tuesday.  Even Kyle Drabek had a decent start.

The Associated Press says long-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher and former Blue Jay Mike Flanagan was found dead outside his Maryland home yesterday.  He was 59.

Mike Flanagan was a member of the Blue Jays from 1987 to 1990.

New Hampshire and Dunedin were your Tuesday night winners in a 2-4 effort on the farm.  The lone Canadian club in the system had a horrendous night in Oregon.

Today's POTD looks at a Bauxite fan favourite and a couple of former Jays with St. Louis earlier this season.

Royals reliever Tim Collins shown on Crown Vision prior to his entrance to the mound against Oakland May 8.

It has happened, Aaron Hill is gone, along with John McDonald for Kelly Johnson via the Jays website.

Kansas City's in town. I don't want to jinx it, but what are the odds the Jays don't sweep? Oops, I just jinxed it.

Nothing to see here, move along. There weren't really any great performances from top prospects on Monday night - we're stuck with a decent outing from Chad Jenkins, a 1-4 with a HR from Anthony Gose... things like that. But hey, Kevin Patterson was great!

The best thing about Da Box is its community. You guys are great! That community exists to an extent on Twitter, but it's somewhat fragmented, so I'd like to compile a list of Bauxites so we can all be a big happy Twamily. If you want to be on the list let me know here. Just a forewarning: by putting your info here, you're giving me permission to re-publish it in future updates to this thread or on something like a static page at the top of the site.

The top two affiliates went winless but the young guys managed to pull out four wins to make it a solid night on the farm... Oh, and the number two is featured prominently in this report.

The largest variable determining how many runs a team will score is how many times they get their leadoff man on.
 - Bill James, 1988 Baseball Abstract

While there's only one leadoff hitter in the starting lineup, in the course of the game lots of players get a chance. Here's how the Jays' hitters have done (through Saturday's games) when leading off the inning: