It's not the pitching. Which you knew already, no doubt.

It was a bleak Friday on the farm. Every affiliate lost and collectively they were outscored 39-17. There were few noteworthy performances and it was a night best forgotten, especially for a couple of Toronto starters.

The Jays dodge their opposition's ace for the third consecutive series...

While most organizations will take the 'best player available' in the draft, it can't hurt to see what are the positions of need down the line.

Accardo and Janssen both have ERAs under 1 now.

Yesterday, we met a team composed of players born on May 24; perhaps the less said of that team, the better. Reader comments ranged from the (admittedly quite charitable) "This is like a collection of bench players" to "Hello, shutout." The most positive thing written, and this should tell you something -- was Mike Green's claim that the team "would be a load of laughs, especially when they lost." Of course, he projected the team would have lost 121 times in the '07 AL East, so that is a LOAD of laughs.

Could a team made up of the 53 players born today fare better than that? Hey, at least this team has a Hall of Famer on its roster, though ...

It's a pitchers week. The farm affiliates split four games on Thursday

No less than 49 big league ballplayers, including several currently active, share a May 24 birthday. That's almost two rosters full of candidates for an All-5/24 team, and though not a single one has yet been named to Baseball's Hall of Fame -- Bartolo Colon is the active player with the best chance, so odds are the number will stay "nil" indefinitely -- it seems like we might be able to build a pretty good squad.

Er, maybe not. Anyway, let's find out, as we meet ...

The Lugnuts provided the power display on the farm, as the affiliates went 1-2 on the evening.

Yesterday's Minor League Update thread contained a discussion on the chances of Ottawa possibly becoming the Triple "A" affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2009.   Late last week, the Ottawa Lynx were featured in a National Post article by Joe O'Connor and to say it doesn't paint a pretty picture is an understatement.

AJ Wideman had the best performance of the night as the affiliates went 1-3.

A superb pitching performance in Manchester, a huge comeback in the Sunshine State, and an extra innings thriller in Illinois gave the affiliates a 3-1 record last night.  It could've been a perfect night but a 9th inning rally in Central New York fell a run short.  A doubleheader in two different towns may have played a role.

That would be me.

Ty Taubenheim, David Purcey and Ryan Houston each were hit hard on Sunday.  Kyle Ginley pitched well but only for four innings.  Lansing were the sole victors Sunday even though they only had three hits in the game, Matt Lane had the key hit to drive in two runs, and that's all they needed.

Three wins, one loss and a suspended game Saturday as New Hampshire split a double-header, Syracuse and Lansing won and Dunedin were leading when the power went out.  The Chiefs won in the bottom of the ninth on a Howie Clark single, Travis Snider hit a home run and had four RBI's, and Victor Zambrano took a walk on the wild side.