The Blue Jays' attempt to build a contending team has failed.

All eyes were on New Hampshire last night as one of the best prospects in all of baseball faced off against a rehabbing starter whose absence from the rotation has been sorely noticed in Toronto this season. The game did not disappoint and provided one of the few bright spots on the farm last night. Las Vegas nipped a close game from Tacoma, but Dunedin was shut out, Lansing and the GCL Blue Jays were both blown out and Auburn lost a tight game on a pair of errors.

Former Jays closer B.J. Ryan has signed a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs.  He'll look to join former Toronto teammates Ted Lilly, Reed Johnson and Randy Wells in the Windy City.  He's to report to the Cubs rookie-level club in Mesa, Arizona on Sunday.

With all the recent talk of trading Roy Halladay and retooling I have two questions rolling around in my head.  First, if the Jays are to begin retooling who can they count on being ready to help the big club in 2010?  And secondly, with all the promotions to the big league team this season, who is the Jays best prospect who has not yet appeared in the big leagues?

The bats in Dunedin and Lansing thawed out.  The Auburn bullpen blew a good start by Egan Smith, the GCL Jays were short on hitting with just three hits.  Casey Janssen threw a shutout inning for Dunedin.

It's pretty obvious that the Blue Jays 2009 season so far breaks nicely into two quite distinct halves: that rollicking 27-14 start (good times!) and the alarming 17-32 run that took them to this week's Break in the Action.

Since that hot 27-14 getaway of blessed memory, by going 17-32 since the Blue Jays have given 15 games back to .500. By strange coincidence, they gave away exactly 15 games to .500 on those two Road Trips From Hell - the 0-9 trip in late May and the 2-8 run that just concluded the first half.

So what the hell happened there, anyway?

Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Dunedin and Lansing all had the night off because they're enjoying their All-Star breaks.  However, Auburn and the boys from the Gulf were in action.  Find out who won and who lost in today's truncated minor league update. 

So apparently there was a baseball game on Tuesday night -- a Major League Baseball game, even, although it's true, it was an "exhibition." (Wait, this time it counts -- is that still an "exhibition"?) Some guy named Barry O'Bama (I think -- is that Irish?) threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Roy Halladay started the game for the winning team -- that's a sentence not written frequently enough in these parts! -- and the same team that always wins this game, they won the game. Woo -- surprise, surprise, surprise.

So our Question(s) of the Day ... Did you watch any of it? Did anyone watch all of it? If so (or if not), why? (or why not?) For those who did watch, did anything stick with you as truly memorable?

My apologies for the lateness. I'll make up for this transgression by being as brief as possible.

It's All-Star Season, and as such, the Eastern League will soon be holding their all-star game and home run derby. The only Fisher Cat who will participate in the derby is, as you can probably guess, Brian Dopirak. But there's another participant with Blue Jay ties. Try to guess. I dare you.

Roy Halladay, recently named the American League's starting pitcher in the All-Star Game tomorrow, shared his thoughts recently on the possibility of being traded.

The full season affiliates went 3-1 on Sunday while Auburn dropped a pair to halve things for the day.

Batters Box caught up with Dick Scott on Saturday as he was watching a GCL game in Florida.  Dick told us some bad news about Brad Mills and Kyle Ginley; had some promising news for Brian Dopirak; and talked about the year so far for Brad Emaus, JP Arencibia and David Cooper, among others.

The Fisher Cats won to prevent another whitewash on the farm.  Good pitching by Adrian Martin and home runs by Nick Gorneault and Brian Jeroloman paced New Hampshire.  David Purcey and Shaun Marcum took the loss in their starts.

Fresh on his return from the minor leagues, Jonathan Sanchez tossed a no-hitter for the Giants as they hosted the Padres tonight; the home team won 8-0.

Too bad nobody had Sanchez in the official Batter's Box "Who Will Toss the 2009 Season's First No-No" pool. The cash award, after factoring in the odds, would have been approximately four hundred billion dollars (Canadian).