Brett Cecil and Adam Lind had big nights on the farm. Sounds weird, but true.

We are past the one third mark in the minor league season so before we get buried in the draft and the new short season teams I thought we should take a look at the season so far in the minor leagues.  This look is based on the one third, one third, one third rule.  For those of you who are not familiar with the rule, the expectation of a teams prospects is that one third will improve over a season, one third will disappoint, and one third will be unchanged.  Two years ago the Jays had the season from hell where almost 50% of the prospects disappointed.  This year I think we will do better.

This is a two part story, in part one today I will look at the Dunedin and Lansing squads.  Part two will feature prospects in Las Vegas and New Hampshire.

Was there a game last night?  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, I had to go to a funeral last night and I don't mean at the RC.  By the time I came home the Jays had conceded twelve runs.  I got to see the Jays mount their comeback of a sort.

Kyle Drabek had been dodging bullets all season with his loose command but last night it came back to bite him in a big way.  I have to say the Indians impressed me with their willingness to go the other way with a lot of pitches in this series.  The question du jour, as per the poll on the left, is what to do with Drabek?  Was this just a bad game, or was it a reflection of his season and a sign that something has to get fixed?  It can be hard to fix things in-season but I am sure the big brains in the front office are trying to figure out what to do with Drabek today.

Today's thread is a Giant Data Table.

Words to that effect may have come out of the mouth of Brett Lawrie.  They may also have been muttered by the Blue Jays organization and the fan base Tuesday night.  Sportsnet's Shi Davidi says the Langley, B.C. native was hit in the hand by a pitch during his first at-bat by Tucson Padres hurler Anthony Bass at Cashman Field.  It appeared the Jays had planned to call Lawrie up in time for Friday's game in Baltimore but that plan now appears to be out the window.

In case anyone cares how the affiliates did Tuesday night, it was not a banner evening as four of the five affiliates joined the parent club in the loss column.  At least they were not totally screwed.

After 54 games, 1/3 of the season, the Jays sit at 28-26. They've won four in a row, their second longest streak of the season (they also swept a 2-gamer with Boston, had Bautista unleash his 5 HR weekend against the Twins and took the first from Detroit.) After the next two with Cleveland (Mitch Talbot, 3.77 FIP, Josh Tomlin, 4.42 FIP) they travel to Baltimore and Kansas City for 3 game sets before a difficult stretch to reach the All-Star Break - 3 each against Baltimore and Boston, before a 10 game road trip in the NL, where they get one of if not the most difficult schedule - Cincinnati, St. Louis, Atlanta (plus a rain out against Detroit). They then get six at home against Pittsburgh and Philly, before closing out the first half with 3 at Boston and 4 at Cleveland. So, if you're scoring at home, after this upcoming road trip they play 6 games in 5 weeks agaisnt sub-500 teams, and those teams are a combined 8 games under. Suffice it to say, this is a make or break point in the season.

So, how's the team doing at the third mark then?

We are down to less than a week before the draft, it starts next Monday evening to be precise.  Mock drafts are breaking out all over and prognostications (guesses) are a dime a dozen.

Nobody particularly distinguished themselves on the farm on Monday night. That's a good thing - there were just a lot of hitters who had equally impressive performances. And New Hampshire staged an amazing comeback.

Brett Lawrie kept on rolling with two more hits, both extra base hits, along with three runs driven in. The club also got great pitching performances from Asher Wojciechowski and Zach Stewart.

Toronto Blue Jays third basemen are 0 for their last 45, after the 0-for-6 effort yesterday. Edwin Encarnacion has become a peripheral figure who may find playing time on the field hard to come by. Nix has gone through a rough stretch since returning from the DL. Toronto’s .170 average from third basemen ranks last in baseball and they’ve contributed 3 homers and 15 RBI. Meanwhile, Las Vegas continues to enjoy the Brett Lawrie show.

We get to witness history this year.

I recently received the stats for the Blue Jay players in extended spring training.  These numbers are not published on milb.com because extended spring is unofficial baseball, the games are scheduled by each team, they play locally against other similar extended teams and the results are not reported.  Rehabbing players also play in these games.  In this story I will let you know how some of these players are doing in these invisible games.

But first a question......name the starting pitcher/prospect in extended spring training who has the lowest ERA, the lowest WHIP, the highest K rate (16/9IP); and the best strikeout to walk ratio.  Here is a clue....it's not who you think.

Las Vegas and New Hampshire won big, combining to score 26. Meanwhile, the lower affiliates fought their opponents hard and lost two games by three runs, combined.

I had just finished writing up last night's report and was clicking over to another tab to check on someone's final line when I accidentally hit the 'X' the Da Box tab. Had I saved a draft? Of course not. So here we go again. Abbreviated, this time.

I talked with the Lugnuts new first-year manager Mike Redmond at the start of this month when I was in Lansing.  Redmond played parts of thirteen years in the big leagues and retired with a lifetime .287 batting average.  Redmond was never a starter, his maximum at-bats in any one season was 272.  But he was on the Marlins team that won the world series in 2003.