"Is this heaven?"
"No, it's the Internet."
-- Field of Names, movie release TBD

You may have heard, there's a little election going on over in Rome. I'm not quite sure if the final Pope candidate debates have been scheduled for CNN or not, or if the various people running for Pope are ...

In honor of his strong performance again yesterday, today's Photo of the Day features Shea Hillenbrand.

Here he is on April 9th, taking David Wells deep:

The Jays' nine-game road trip concludes in the ninety-three-year-old home of the World Champs, with a Patriots' Day morning affair followed by a night game tomorrow. If the Jays split the series, it'll have been an excellent Oakland/Texas/Boston jaunt on balance. If they manage to take the pair, it'll have been an absolutely superior road trip.

The Red Sox have come alive, winning their last four over the Yankees and D-Rays. What's worrisome in scouting the Bosox is that they are winning with three key hitters -- Millar, Manny and Mueller -- who are not swinging the bat anywhere near their expected level. The rest of the lineup is rounding into the patient and powerful form that makes the Boston batting order so dangerous. Let's see how accurate my scouting reports prove to be for some of these batsmen.

Now's the time to get to Curt Schilling, who will only get stronger once his fastball starts moving today. The good news is that a razor-sharp Doc gets the ball against Bronson Arroyo in a more favourable matchup in the finale of this mini-series.

On to the Advance Scout!

A cofee and a bagel might be more appropriate today than a beer and a hotdog. It's an 11 am start for the Boston Marathon/Patriots Day game.

Only one win on the farm, as the bats are unable to take advantage of good pitching. Keep reading for bonus, and double bonus coverage.

Senators legislate permanent one-team rule.
Jay’s Ehs maintain narrow leads over Pistol Nine.
Baseball North announces presence with authority.

No lead is safe! This was one of those losses I can live with, after a bad start there were a lot of positives for the fighting Jays. Great performance from the bullpen, good comeback by the offence who had chances to take a lead - there were runners at the corners when Hinske came up with two outs in the seventh.

Thanks to an idea from Bauxite Anders in yesterday's The Youngs and the Rest List Hall of Names feature, here's quick stab at a rarity -- a followup sidebar, for which we have rejected the names "Junior League" and "Junior Circuit" though the promising '70s pop culture reference available in a team called the "Junior Samples" sure was tempting.

Anyway, here we go ...

Or as Spencer Fordin puts it:

Towers tries to rise above Texas
Toronto (8-4) at Texas (5-7), 2:05 p.m. ET

It went bang - I said rap up.
Well I'm aware that the guy must do his work
But the piledriver man drove me berserk.

The farm affiliates got three good starting performances from control pitchers, and a few rallies, and emerged with a 2-2 record on the day.

Sunday's ballgame between the Rangers and Blue Jays pits Team Canada against a very young squad -- in several ways. First, Texas does play quite a few chronologically-deprived players; but more to the point, they have an All-Star quality shortstop in former Jay farmhand Michael Young, and Sunday's starting pitcher is the former Princeton hoopster Chris Young, a 6'10" 25-year-old righty.

Baseball management types are always talking about a "youth movement" and playing "the young guys" but here the Rangers seem to actually be doing it. If only they hadn't let go of versatile veteran utilityman Eric Young, lost to the Padres, in the recent offseason.

Actually, 35 men named "Young" -- including a certain Cyclone you may have heard about -- have donned major league duds, and we could probably struggle along and build a whole Hall of Names team out of that list, but in the spirit of our youth -- er, at least Young -- movement, we'll think outside the box here inside Da Box and get creative ...

Yeah, I know, everyone seems to be calling him Morpheus (in Oakland, they called him "The Fly") - but Liam is an even bigger Tragically Hip fan than myself and Gus the Polar Bear was his idea, and I'm sticking with it. It's blood, you know.

It was almost a clean sweep for the Jays’ farm teams last night, and had the Fisher Cats managed a little more extra-inning offence, so might it have been. But there were plenty of good stories emerging from last night’s action, including strong comeback performances from one prospect in Dunedin and two star-crossed big-name trade acquisitions in Syracuse.

Not a compelling game. When the other pitcher is completely on his game, it's seldom a lot of fun. If the other pitcher is someone like Johan Santana or Pedro Martinez, it can at least be extremely impressive. But Ryan Drese is nothing like that. It's a little boring watching him beat you.