We had yer fine pitching performances, yer awesome displays of power, and yer collisions at the plate.  More fun than a monster truck rally, as the farm affiliates went 4-3.

Maybe the Wild Card will be coming from the AL East after all...

Why does it always seems like at least one of the six teams is rained out every night? Can you guess who it was on Friday? Hint: it wasn't either of the two teams playing Burlington.

It was another typical day in the minors with two rainouts, two pitchers struggling noticeably with their control, a shutout, a team effort on offence, a 15-hit performance, a case of batter’s interference and players faring differently with their adjustment to Double-A.

 

I'm a little slow on this one -- the bad news has been out for a while that Pete Walker's season, and possibly his career, are over.  Here's hopin' rehab goes well, Pete!

Some things just don't change.

"Home run hitters drive Cadillacs. Singles hitters drive Fords."
--Ralph Kiner

Rehab in Syracuse, a guy named Ambiorix in Binghamton, Ontario boy does well in Dunedin, rain for Lansing, the empty set of things to discuss with Auburn, and a first-rounder's fifth homer.

Sigh.

After John McDonald's grand slam the other night, I promised another Photo of the Day for him.  And here it is -- John McDonald shaking the dirt out of his pants after sliding in to second base:

Again ... that's initially speaking ...

We'll go off the beaten path for a moment in this double-ititial odyssey for the Hall of Names (See the first four double-initial teams, "AA" Through "CC", "DD" Through "FF", "GG" Through "JJ" and "KK" Through "MM," here), and see if we can't put together a full team, or even a full roster, of players by combining the nine (there's a good baseball number omen) letters which did not have at least nine players reach the bigs with double initials.

Those letters, unfortunately, include II, QQ, UU and XX, each of which contributed exactly zero double-initial players; UU and YY, each of which produced just one; and NN (five), OO (eight), VV (two) and ZZ (three). So that's a total of just 20 players, eleven of whom were pitchers, but let's see what we can do anyway ...

Pulaski looked like my softball team in the field last night - 7 errors.  The affiliates went 2-4 on the night.

Here's Jays farmhand Chad Mottola during his recent stint in Toronto, filling in for Alex Rios:

Yes, I was away - I was Moving. I could bitch and moan about the whole dreary process of Moving all day long if you like, but you probably wouldn't like, and why should you? So let's get cracking, shall we?

There are 25 men who have more than 3000 hits, and a 26th, Roberto Clemente, with exactly 3000. Naturally, some of the players we are watching today will carve out their own spots on this list. Everyone with 3000 hits is in the Hall of Fame, unless they're actually ineligible. That standard seems unlikely to change - 3000 hits will continue to mean automatic induction.

The affiliates went 0-5 on Monday.