Death By Statistics

3 wins in 4 tries for Toronto’s affiliates.

This fall, the Blue Jays will be contributing players to the Phoenix Desert Dogs instead of the Peoria Saguaros in the Arizona Fall League. Pitchers Kyle Yates, Tracey Thorpe, Jordan De Jong and Danny Hill, along with catcher Curtis Thigpen and infielders Chip Cannon and Ryan Klosterman have been named to the club. Tom Signore will be the Desert Dog pitching coach.

Jays edge Indians

Your Regular Season Champions

Alomar Division: Edmonton Decepticons
Barfield Division: Magic 9
Carter Division: Sexy Underpants

It is what it says: here are Vernon Wells and Reed Johnson bumping fists after a Wells homer.

Again, it's the Indians, and again, one of us is MIA - Rob is settling in to Waterloo and deprived of internet access.

What can I tell you that he hasn't already? Not much. But you'll see Wednesday starter Jake Westbrook, Travis Hafner's freak but non-severe hand injury, and the guy who hit a grand slam on his first major-league pitch if you proceed...

On to the Advance Scout!

Auburn won both ends of a doubleheader to give them a three game lead with four days left in the season.  Dunedin won their final regular season game as they gear up for the playoffs.  Syracuse, New Hampshire and Lansing finish their regular seasons today.  Both Auburn and New Hampshire are riding seven game win streaks.

What difference does September really make? How often does a team get to play in the post-season who would not have had the opportunity if the season had ended on August 31? Does it happen regularly?

Often enough.

So, remember that photo from last week of Gregg Zaun sliding through Jason Kendall?  Here's what happened a fraction of a second before that:

As noted here previously, in building the historical Baseball Hall of Names, we've done a peculiarly inconsistent job building teams for North America's most common shared first/given names. We took steps to address that recently with teams dedicated to the names John, Richard and Charles and now we move on to the number four name on that list, which we summarily refuse to nickname the "Camels" and instead proudly introduce ...

Only three teams played, and they all won.  Kyle Yates was outstanding for the Fisher Cats but the bullpen had to pitch six more innings before New Hampshire could win.  Cory Patton's home run, and Kurt Isenberg's pitching, led Dunedin to victory.  Lansing won easy as lead-off hitter went 5-5.

Rob isn't giving you a TDIB Sunday beause he's incommunicado or something. So let's hand out some hardware. They don't let me vote, but...

The best start of Kyle Snyder's still-promising career runs the Jays' losing streak to five.

Everyone won except for the Chiefs.  Auburn's win kept them 2.5 games ahead in the race for the playoffs with five days left.  Hurricane Ernesto could help Auburn over the weekend if many games are lost to the weather.  Josh Banks, Orlando Trias, Adrian Martin and Barndon Magee pitched well.  Aaron Mathews and Ryan Patterson were the offensive standouts.