July ended with a Syracuse win and an Auburn loss. Youneverknow, but I do know that the affiliates continued their fine overall play with a 5-2 record on Saturday.

Not only deadlier but smarter too smarter too
All along the tomb, all along the ruin

Back in April, the first time we invited you to Ask Jerry Howarth your questions, the response was overwhelming. The Blue Jays radio voice answered Bauxites in a thread we creatively dubbed Jerry Howarth Q & A (Vol. 1), because we both wanted to make this a regular feature.

A lot has happened, on and off the field, since our last chat. Because of his partner Tom Cheek's illness, Jerry has worked solo, and with numerous other broadcasters. The Jays have been through a devastating series of injuries, and although there are signs of turning the corner, remain in last place. Here's your chance to get the perspective of someone who knows the club as well as anyone.

Please take a moment to review the previous Q & A, then step into Da Box with your questions. The floor is open until Monday evening, then Jerry will answer as many as he can while the Indians are in town and we'll post the full interview late next week.

But for the struggling Skychiefs and a Pulaski rainout, it would have been another clean sweep for the Jays' farm system. Also struggling is my computer, which wouldn't access several sites this morning, including MiLB.com and the New-Hampshire Union-Leader. Accordingly, if I've missed any highlights, stories or other aspects of last night's minor-league action, please add them to the thread.

But still it's farewell
And maybe we'll come back
To earth, who can tell?

I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?

As usual, here's my monthly report card for July. It wasn't a good month, but it could have been worse: only one star player went on the disabled list. And nobody got arrested or anything like that.

On the occasion of our 1,000,000th hit (look at the counter at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar) we at Batter's Box would like to thank all our readers for supporting the site through thick and thin, good times and bad, hot stove and day games and night games. We hope we can continue to entertain and inform you into the future. Thanks for your eyeballs, your e-mails, your camaraderie and your comments.

The trade deadline has come and gone quietly for the Blue Jays.

Today, David Bush takes on the Devil Rays for the second time. A day after talking to us, Bush battled the Rays in Skydome and earned his first major league win. Bush threw nearly 70% of his pitches for strikes and gave up 3 runs (only 1 earned) in 7.1 innings. He walked 1 batter, struck out 2 and gave up a solo dinger to Aubrey Huff.

With Victor Zambrano now a Met, the Rays throw Jorge Sosa against Toronto.

Lee Sinins's daily reports are a great place to get your baseball news in digest form. There were several juicy rumours and of course some trades (both high and low impact) on the penultimate day before the "first" trading deadline. Here are the trades in distilled form:

LA gets Brad Penny, Hee Seop Choi and minor league P Bill Murphy
FLA gets Guillermo Mota, Paul Lo Duca and Juan Encarnacion

METS get Kris Benson, minor league 2B Jeff Keppinger
PIT gets Ty Wigginton, minor league P Matt Peterson, INF Jose Bautista
KCR gets mior league C Justin Huber

TBD gets minor league Ps Scott Kazmir and Jose Diaz
METS get Victor Zambrano and minor league P Bartolome Fortunato

SFG gets Ricky Ledee, minor league P Alfredo Simon
PHI gets Felix Rodriguez

PHI gets Todd Jones, minor league OF Brad Correll
CIN gets minor league P Josh Hancock and minor league SS Anderson Machado

A losing night overall down on the farm. Adam Peterson blew up good, again.

Our only goal will be the western shore.
So now you’d better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day

The Jays are back at square one. After being swept in Toronto, the D-Rays swept the hapless Royals, gaining 2 games in the standingsto lead the fifth place Blue Jays by 4 games.

Tampa Bay outscored Kansas City 18 to 3 over the three games. Tall lefthanded Mark Hendrickson tossed a 4-hit shutout, allowed but one unearned run. Rob Bell and 3 relievers combined on a 4-hit shutout to complete the sweep.

Josh Towers and John Halama are the scheduled starters.

Apologies once again for a rather spartan Advance Scout. I'm pulling a Joe Namath, though, and guaranteeing against the odds that the Cleveland Scout next week will be a real bang-up report.

In the meantime, enjoy the series! The Devil Rays bounced back from their lost weekend in Toronto by returning home and sweeping the hapless crew from Kansas City. The Jays are eager to smack 'em down again. Should be a good one.

A four day homestand, featuring two day games, and one of them is on a holiday!

Thanks to our own Coach and Will "The Thrill" Hill of the Jays, I had a photographic press pass to last Friday's game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.