It was a .500 night on the farm and a .500 night for games played thanks to Old Man Winter/Mother Nature. The lower level teams split their two games while the upper level squads had an unscheduled night off.
No Jays farm team outhit their opponent but the affiliates won 3 of 5 games. Lansing had the same number of hits as runs, two. Chase Lirette made sure those two hits were enough to win the game.
A 1-for-4 night by the minor league affiliates in my debut as a Minor League reporter wasn't what I had in mind. Things didn't go so well in the upper minors but the good stuff is at the lowest rung.
Two wins in three contests. The Syracuse bullpen lost the game while Dunedin won in the ninth. New Hampshire flirted with disaster but Lee Gronkiewicz saved the day. Adam Lind, John-Ford Griffin, Wayne Lydon, Chip Cannon and Eric Kratz hit home runs.
Two games and two rainouts, again. But you’ll want to read about these.
When spring training games start this week most eyes will be on the pitching battles. There are at least two starting pitcher jobs up for grabs and the bullpen has three vacancies. If we expand our view to the Syracuse Chiefs the picture gets even more cloudy, by my count there are thirty-five pitchers battling for twenty-four jobs between the Blue Jays and the Chiefs. Most readers are familiar with the major league battles but might not be aware of the AAA ones.
In other cool news, somewhat minor league related, over at the Hardball Times they announced that the good people that brought us minorleaguesplits.com will also be bringing us collegesplits.com. I imagine this will be quite helpful when looking at college prospects around draft time.