Brett Lawrie fielded cleanly on four plays with Dunedin.  He was solid in the field and put the bat on the ball.  Jessie Litsch put on the dog, starting strong in 6 well pitched innings at Tuscon.

Hey, it's the details that I love...

Nine game, four wins.

The two highest ranking affiliates were in All-Star Game mode, while the lower levels produced some mixed results and a scandalous amount of unearned runs.

Every team nicknamed the Blue Jays were in action, save for Dunedin, and went 2-1 Tuesday.  The teams without the Jays moniker had the night off.

Bye, Juan.

In an odd, that''s-gonna-fail stab at  addressing a problematic hole in left field, earlier today the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired right-handed "hitting" outfielder Juan Rivera and cash from the Jays for a player to be named or cash. In a related move, to create roster space, LA OF Marcus Thames was designated for assignment.

In another thread, long-time Bauxite MatO captured this deal perfectly with the comment, "Who made the Rivera deal?  The bankruptcy judge? "

Balbino Fuenmayor led his team to victory as the farm went 2-4.

Now that we are at the '1/2 way point' (actually a bit past) I got to wondering if anyone is on pace for new records for a Blue Jay.

Today's POTD salutes the return of Roy Halladay to Toronto, even if it was in the wrong uniform.  ;D

Roy Halladay heads to the outfield during Phillies batting practice on Canada Day.

Okay, how does the Home Run Derby play out tonight? Tell us who's going to win, and if you're feeling frisky, rank the entrants from 1-8, like I have done here.

For the record, the "voting" about who will win being done on MLB.com has the Jays' own Jose Bautista running second to ... wait for it ... Robinson Cano. (But it's very close -- go vote if you have a moment!)

I personally think the final standings will look approximately like this ...

It was a .500 day on the farm with the affiliates going 3-3. There were some solid performances but nothing that really stood out.

If it's true that you can never have enough pitching, it's probably also true that you can never have enough money.

The three stars yesterday all went to pitchers, who combined for 21 innings of shutout ball with 7 hits allowed and 26 strikeouts. And Drew Hutchison wasn’t among them. However, Jesse Litsch’s rehab start for Las Vegas was not nearly as pretty.

Well, he certainly did it in style. After a first inning single, Derek Jeter homered off David Price in the third inning this afternoon to become just the 28th player to accumulate 3,000 hits in the major leagues. Then he added three more before the day was over, moving past Roberto Clemente into 27th place all time (Al Kaline is next, at 3.007.) His fifth hit of the day broke a 4-4 tie and plated the winning run in the Yankees 5-4 win over Tampa Bay.

Bauxite ayjackson was wondering

When was the last time we were in that situation?  With a 3-4 hole in the lineup as strong as its been since (ever?).  Certainly since Green/Delgado.

Is Bautista-Lind indeed the best one-two punch the Jays have had in their lineup since then?