Davis Romero led the Fisher Cats to their 5th win in a row, this time over the Portland Sea Dogs, as the farm affiliates went 1-1 on a rain-soaked Friday in the East.

The affiliates finished 3-1 as David Purcey struggled in his start against Pawtucket, but everyone else finished well. Purcey had control issues and let his walks hurt him, but he also allowed a surprising stolen base. Another first-round pick, Ricky Romero, made his second start of the season and performed well enough to earn a star.

For the second week in a row, the Thursday MLU was delayed and almost cancelled due to technical issues. Fear not, however, my painfully slow Internet connection eventually went through and here you are. Four wins and one loss.

Michael MacDonald threw 8 scoreless innings as the affiliates went 2-1 with a rainout.

Stop me if you heard this before, Syracuse had a disappointing month.  The Chiefs ended April at 10-13, which is below expectations.  Syracuse did have the best pitching in the IL, plus they outscored their opponents in April by 5 runs, but they were 2-7 in one run games and that led to a losing month. 

The Dunedin Blue Jays currently have a 16-14 record and sit in third place of the West Division of the Florida State League. The D-Jays are 1.5 games of Fort Myers. In this monthly review we’ll recap seven Dunedin prospects that caught my eye and see what this month has revealed.

If baseball were indeed 75% pitching, the Orioles' future would look very bright. Fortunately for the home club, it is not.

A perfect night for the Blue Jay farm, featuring a somewhat more-than-perfect night for Ryan Patterson. Exaggeration? Not much.

New Hampshire didn't start off very well -- a four game losing streak in the first week, then five losses out of six games to close out the month with only 8 wins in 22 games. Kevin Gray's article from Sunday morning contains the line: "If it weren't for the Wichita Wranglers of the Texas League, New Hampshire would own the worst winning percentage in all of Double-A baseball." That tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Fisher Cats, but, of course, more information on their "dismal start" follows.

Orlando Trias recorded the only win for the affiliates.  Lansing ran into a pretty good pitcher for A ball, Kerry Wood.  Syracuse faced Cole Hamels, one of the best pitching prospects in baseball.  Lansing and Syracuse lost in extra innings, New Hamshire lost in regulation.  Vinnie Chulk made a AAA appearance and gave up a home run, and Billy Carnline is human after all.

All four farm affiliates were visitors, and two were kind to their hosts.

Hey, no offense, minor league affiliates, but you had no offense last night. Syracuse won one, but nobody else did. I worked top-down on this Minor League Update and it started off well, but by the time I got to Lansing...well, see for yourself:

Rain helped Toronto avoid an organizational sweep Thursday, as only the postponement of the Pawtucket-Syracuse match meant that the SkyChiefs had no chance of joining the Blue Jays, FisherCats, Dunedin Jays and Lugnuts on the losing end of the scoreboard.

The Lugnuts went 17-5 in April, as just about everything went right.  Shall we revel in the details?

Last night, I was seconds away from going with "At press time, the score of this game was..." but Dunedin finally finished it up after three hours and 13 minutes down in Sarasota. Two wins for the affiliates last night (Lansing had the night off), including a fun ending in Syracuse that inspired the weak pun in the headline.