Lakeland Tigers beat Dunedin (Toronto) Blue Jays

Tonight, not only did the Lakeland Flying Tigers complete the two game sweep of the Dunedin Blue Jays  in their best of three Florida State League North Division final, they did it without allowing a run!  And the Dunedin Jays had three major league regulars make appearances in the series!  Well, two major league regulars and one quad A player who was actually having a pretty decent time of it in Toronto before his back injury.

Is it worth looking at the actual numbers?  May as well, but they are not particularly attractive.  J.P. Arencibia is the only one of

the three to play both games, catching both, and going one for eight with three strike outs.  David Cooper played game one at first base sporting a one for five line with a strike out and Brett Lawrie played the second at third base, leading off and going 0 for three with a walk.

Now, I know these guys are rehabbing, their timing is off, and they may disrupt clubhouse chemistry, blah blah blah. But seriously?  A team with at least 2 major leaguers in the lineup can’t even manufacture one run over two games? I was thinking even something as simple as the ol’ sacrifice home run would do it.  Hell, JP has hit sixteen so far this season for the Jays.  Surely he would be able to catch up to an A ball pitcher??!  Maybe they wanted to emulate their mates in Toronto who were getting blanked by the Orioles over the first two games of their series.

When I saw the lineups before game one, I felt a twinge of pity for the Flying Tigers.  Surely that’s not fair.  Ya, mlb regulars can play as many rehab games in the lower levels as they want during the regular season.  But we’re talking about the playoffs here, not practice.  Got that one wrong though, well played to Lakeland, and congratulations to Dunedin on what has to be considered a pretty successful season.  I’m sure, during the off-season, we’ll dissect to death each player’s season and where they may end up next year, because, well, it will be fun, and we won’t have a ton of other subjects to write about.

And then there were two.  That leaves the Lansing Lugnuts and Vancouver Canadians as the only Blue Jays affiliates still in the hunt for some silverware this year.

And let me digress here for a second.  I don’t mean to sound negative.  Three minor league franchises making the playoffs has to be considered an excellent season for the organization as a whole.  It’s just been a bit tough lately to be a Jays fan, so it would have been far more fun to see Arencibia, Cooper, Lawrie et al crushing bombs all over the place rather than getting blanked over two games.

Lansing got turned over 5-2 in Fort Wayne versus the TinCaps.  Noah Syndergaard took the loss going four innings, giving up three earned on six hits with five strike outs.  Tomorrow will be a fairly important game.  Justin Nicolino gets the ball and hopefully Brett Lawrie can get a few knocks in Low A, as he’ll be playing third, batting leadoff, and collecting a few air miles.

Vancouver start their best of three Northwest League final against the Boise Hawks Thursday night.  Javier Avendano, who has been sensational for the C’s this season, gets the start.  Here’s hoping he can get the Canadians an early series lead before it shifts back to Boise for games two and, if necessary, three.

I need some good news.  Plus, I’ll be at the Nat, so a solid performance from Avendano would justify all the glowing posts I’ve written about him lately.