It's no secret that Aaron Hill has been awful this year. However, there's been very little hand-wringing 'round these parts (or anywhere, really) about his struggles. Perhaps it's the homers (he hit #23 in Monday's game), or the excellent defense (though this is a suspect claim according to the numbers). More likely, I think we've all just been assuming he'd come out of the slump at any minute. More than five months later, he hasn't. Why not?

Two of the affiliates played their last game tonight, and two others will be starting their postseason tomorrow. Monday's action featured three games and Lansing was the only one to earn a victory... but what a victory.

The Blue Jays have purchased the contract of Shawn Hill from Triple-A Las Vegas and have recalled Robert Ray, as well.

A little more than three weeks remain. Who's going to be cashing those bonus cheques, and scooping up some hardware to put on the shelf? They don't let me vote, which is just as well. But if I could...

2-4 on an extremely boring final Sunday of the minor league season.  Aside from the no-hitter with two outs in the final frame, that is.

Offence was the theme for winning Saturday night on the farm with Las Vegas and Auburn bats burning brightly.  And 9 K’s from Dunedin pitching helped them past the Yankees.  New Hampshire saw some good individual performances but fell short to Portland.

Just two of the five affiliates in action were victorious.  A dominanting pitching performance is the highlight of this Friday night.  The lowlights were a lack of plate discipline in a pair of games.

Let's play that Hall of Names favorite, Match Name '10! The topic this time around is "questions posed by batter/pitcher, battery and teammate combinations" -- all you have to do is come up with a pair of MLB player names that combine to create a famous non-baseball pairing of words, then ask whatever question that pairing causes to occur.

Last names are preferred, given first names are okay, middle names are acceptable if necessary, nicknames, as always, are right out. Spelling matters, but you are welcome to work your way around that if you can.

Here are a few examples to get you started ..

• When Jim Gott faced Tim Teufel, did every baseball fan in Germany tremble in fear? (To explain, just offer a parenthetocial like this one, wherein you provide the information that "gott" and "teufel" are the German words for "God" and "devil.")
• If Buddy Black faced Steve Decker, which way would the advantage cut? (See, "Black & Decker" ... get the idea?)
• Would there be ...

It was a perfect night on the farm and some Jonathans and and an Oliver did some major damage.

A Pinch Hit from James Strapp, who has done a couple of these for us before:

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I took my boys to the Jays game last Friday. In that game the Jays’ first hit was a Bautista home run in the fourth inning. After eight innings, they had a total of four hits, with two of them being home runs. No starter has a batting average over .286. All they seem to be able to hit is home runs.

Well, that got me thinking. What team has had the highest percentage of their hits be home runs? And where do the 2010 Blue Jays stand?

Thanks to erstwhile Bauxites TJ Caino and jgadfly for the tip in another thread. (But you know, this definitely deserves its own space!)

Toronto Blue Jays' catching prospect J.P. Arencibia of the Las Vegas 51s (pictured, left) has been named the Pacific Coast League's MVP for the 2010 season.

Sportsnet.ca has the story here and there's a PDF announcement from minorleaguebaseball.com here.

Congratulations, JPA. Now let's see you do it again next year, only this time in Baseball North!

Minor league catching stalwart, Maxim St. Pierre (Quebec City, PQ) has been called up by the Tigers and will very likely make his major league debut after 978 minor league games, all but 10 in the Tigers' organization.

Dunedin and Lakeland played a marathon that is a strong contender for game of the year in the minor leagues. The game went 17 innings and was scoreless through the first 16 frames. Arguably, that’s not the most impressive fact from the game, as one team was no-hit through the first 13 innings. There were several fine pitching performances throughout the minors and I could tell you some interesting facts like that the 4 non-Triple-A saw 11 total runs scored in 44 innings, but wouldn’t we all rather just get to the game of the night, and of the year?

Well, Magpie got it going and now I have to figure it out. How has the age of players changed over the years, especially regarding teenagers?

The Jays affiliates were almost perfect last night.  Two extra innings wins and a pair of two-run victories boosted the affiliates to a 4-1 record.