The honorary Canadian was a big reason why the affiliates were .500 on the night.  Two games were rained out.

Brad Mills pitches against Seattle at the Dome September 23.

Here's an odd Hall-of-Names thought bubble ...
There are, of course, currently thirty major league baseball managers. Could we build a competitive full roster of players from that list of 30 names? (And who would manage the team?)

Well, quick answer -- no, we can't build a full roster as no less than EIGHT current MLB skippers never played in the show themselves -- quick, how many of those eight can you name without looking it up? (Answer appears below.) And a full seven of the remaining 22 roster candidates were primarily catchers, so that limits our options almost as much as the fact that there are only two pitchers available.

Anyway, let's see what we can come up with ...

Following up on a off topic post in a previous thread... Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reported a few hours ago that Brad Emaus was designated for assignment by the Mets.

The Yankees are at the Fabulous ThunderDome for a quick two game series with 7:07 start times for each.  The Yankees have won four of five while the Jays have dropped three in a row to crap, er, cap off a 3-7 road trip.  Toronto won 10 of the 18 games in the season series last season.

The twittersphere is abuzz with the news that Frank Francisco has been activated and Jesse Litsch has been sent down to Las Vegas.  It appears that the preservation of a potential asset in Jo-Jo Reyes is taking precedent over putting the best team on the field today.

In recent years the Toronto Blue Jays organization has not had a lot of success developing Latin America talent. In recent years, though, the club has returned to its roots and has started to invest heavily in that area once again.

Under former general manager J.P. Ricciardi the Dominican Summer League team was largely ignored. Any player that was lucky enough to receive a visa to come and play in the U.S. was used mostly as an organizational solider or roster-filler. The 2006 DSL team was a little different. A number of players caught the attention of the Player Development Staff and received brief opportunities (Bartolo Nicolas, Yensy Perez, Carlos Vasquez, Jimmy Gonzalez) but two pitchers had eye-opening seasons.

We knew Boston would start to turn things around. Did it have to be against the Jays?

It was a very good night for the Jays' farm system (4-0), and for top prospects in particular. Zach Stewart, Deck McGuire, Eric Thames, Carlos Perez and Travis d'Arnaud all had good games, but none was as good as Mike McCoy.

Today we look at three pitchers, Joel Carreno, Casey Lawrence and Ryan Tepera.  All pictures and video are from my recent trip to spring training.

The 2004 amateur draft did not go as planned for the Toronto Blue Jays. Under the watchful eye of then general manager J.P. Ricciardi, the club followed a college-player-heavy approach (47 of the 52 picks came from a four-year or community college). The club had two first round picks that season, as well as an extra third-round selection. With its first two choices, the organization nabbed two college left-handed starting pitchers: David Purcey out of the University of Oklahoma and Zach Jackson out of Texas A&M University. Purcey was traded today to the Oakland Athletics for former Jays prospect and triple-A reliever Danny Farquhar.

The Jays wrap up the season's first road trip with a morning game against the Bostons, who you knew weren't going to persist in emulating the 1962 Mets...

The Jays affiliates won two games and lost three. The Lansing Lugnuts split a double-header with the Dayton Dragons and the two teams combined for 29 runs.

A pitching exhibition by Mike MacDonald leads the 51s to glory over Fresno, and the Baby Jays’ bats bring it on for Dunedin over cross bay rival Tampa.

The good guys on the farm turned in a 2 win and 2 loss evening.

Interesting game in the Bronx tonight, as the hometowned pinstriped lads dropped another game to the defending AL champion Rangers. [Box Score]  You might recall the Rangers won that AL flag last year partly in New Yankee Stadium.

What was so interesting about the game? Was it Adrian Beltre starting to hit a little bit? Was it Mike Young passing Pudge Rodriguez for most doubles (353) in Rangers' franchise history? Was it Yankee rookie Lance Pendleton making a stunning nine-Rangers-up, nine-Rangers-down MLB debut? Was it the fact that six Ranger hiiters each faced at least 18 pitches, while only one Yankee saw as many as 16?

All those things were nice. But the headline in New York was the pitcher's (3-0 lefty Matty Harrison's) best friend, as ...