Last weekend my wife and I spent a few days in New Hampshire, a trip that included four Fisher Cat games.  Merchantsauto.com stadium, otherwise known as the home of the Fisher Cats, is new and beautiful and a great setting for baseball.  During my visit the Fisher Cats were playing Portland, the RedSox AA affiliate, and the park was full with 7000 fans of both teams.  On our last night we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, just over the left field wall.  We had to have a room with a ballpark view and it is a treat to look out your hotel room window and see a gorgeous ballpark.  This trip summary is the first of a series of New Hampshire stories this week.  Tomorrow we will have an interview with Jesse Litsch, Wednesday an interview with Fisher Cat pitching coach Dave LaRoche, and Thursday an interview with Michael MacDonald.

Lydon continues to shine on Green Days, as the farm affiliates went 2-4 on Saturday night.

Aside from Dunedin splitting a doubleheader, Pulaski was the only team who didn't lose last night, and they did some crazy stuff.

The farm affiliates went 2-3 on the evening.

At the all-star break Syracuse are last in their division, again, a source of great disappointment for the players, the teams few fans in Syracuse, and the Blue Jay organization and their fans.  In broad terms, to be successful a baseball team needs to be above average in two or three of hitting, pitching and fielding.  The Chiefs are above average in none of these categories and, as a result, the team's record at the break is 40-50, eleven games back of the division leader.

It was the All-Star Break for both the Triple-A and Double-A teams last night, leaving four games (and four wins). It's easy for the organization to sweep when Syracuse doesn't play. (And if you can believe it, not one of the six teams played on Tuesday. Let's see if we still remember how to do this.)

April was bad. May was good. June? Not so much.

Since our last update at the end of May, the Lugnuts have completed the first half of the season by qualifying for the playoffs in second place just behind West Michigan. There have been a number of personnel changes on the club, particularly to the pitching staff.

The Blue Jay farm chalks up 3 wins against 2 losses.

As of Monday afternoon Dunedin sat tied for first place in the West Division of the Florida State League with the Tampa Yankees. They also finished the first-half in a tie for first place with Minnesota’s affiliate, the Fort Myers Miracle. Dunedin lost their last three games of the year to finish at 38-32. Fort Myers also last their last game, blowing a chance to win the West Division, as Dunedin won the tiebreaker.

The Doubledays sit at 8-11, 5th place in the Pinckney Division, but just 3 games back of the Muckdogs of Batavia.

It was a rough night for the farm affiliates, who went 2-5, but a young kid gave us a sweet taste of what is to come.

The farm affiliates split 6 games, but some fine individual performances gave hope to the faithful.

Ugh. Let’s just forget Thursday ever happened. A loss to K.C., five losses on the farm and two poor pitching performances by two of Toronto’s best pitching prospects. At least a couple of the games were exciting, as two of the affiliates failed in comeback bids.