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Mahoning Valley continued to ride high Sunday night as they won their fourth game in a row against the Williamsport Crosscutters. After a slow start to the season at 2-6, which included a 5 game losing streak, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers have battled back to a .500 7-7 record on Sunday night with its win over Williamsport. The bats were remarkably hot Sunday as eight of the nine Scrapper starters had at least one hit.

After the Scrappers took the first game of the three game series against the State College Spikes, manager Ted Kubiak preached playing with consistency. Consistency, he said, is the key to baseball. The team has clearly taken that advice to heart, winning the third game of the series 3-1 to sweep the Spikes and end their six game home stand.

Short season Single-A Mahoning Valley right-handed pitcher Robbie Aviles is finally back pitching full time and looks to be all the way back from the Tommy John surgery he had almost two years ago. After two years of rehab he is happy to be pitching in real games and in a real environment in Niles, Ohio, and Matt Miller recently sat down to talk to him about how he is doing.

After a dramatic come from behind win on Thursday, the Scrappers once again found themselves in a ballgame with the State College Spikes. After waiting out Mother Nature for a little over an hour before the game, the Scrappers once again found themselves tied in the eighth inning. This time, they didn’t need a hit to push across the winning run.

In today's week ending edition of Minor Happenings, Tony touches on the power binge that Double-A Akron outfielder Thomas Neal has been on and what that may mean as far as value and a promotion is concerned. In addition to that he provides some recent comments from Ross Atkins on some big league pitching options at Triple-A Columbus, and provides updates on several players at each level from Triple-A Columbus to rookie level Arizona, namely Tim Fedroff, Jeremie Tice, Jesus Aguilar, Rob Nixon, Juan Romero, Jorge Martinez, and more.

The Indians short season affiliate the Mahoning Valley Scrappers are in full swing and just completed their second week of the season. Site columnist Andrew Zajac recaps the week that was by looking at the good, bad, and okay, as well as recapping recent transactions.

When you’re mired in a slump, the bat can feel like a lead pipe in big situations. The Scrapper offense must have been collectively swinging what felt like a thirty pound lead pipe, and they must have exchanged the lead for an old fashioned piece of lumber Thursday, though, as the big hits finally came multiple times, and helped give the Scrappers a big come-from-behind 6-5 win against the State College Spikes.

Indians 2012 first round pick outfielder Tyler Naquin is off to a good start to his professional debut with short season Single-A Mahoning Valley. But it is not just his performance on the field with his bat, arm and hustle that makes him so endearing, it is his attitude and determination that have already earned big points with Indians staffers and fans.

It appeared that the Scrappers offense was poised to break out of their early season slump after showing some positive signs on Tuesday. Looks can be deceiving. The offense provided little positive to talk about on Wednesday, and despite solid pitching efforts, the Scrappers dropped their fifth game in six nights, losing 2-1 to the Williamsport Crosscutters.

After a five game freefall, the Scrappers hope to have put their early season struggles behind them, picking up a big 6-2 win against the Crosscutters on Tuesday night. The offense didn’t waste any time putting runs on the board, plating five in the first two innings. Juan Romero was the first to strike, driving a ball into the Scrapper bullpen in right field to give the Scrappers a 2-0 advantage.

In this week’s first edition of Minor Happenings, Tony takes a look at the continued good performance of lefty T.J. McFarland and what his value may be going forward, shares tons of comments from the Indians front office on players up and down their minor league system, gives an update on the status of Jason Knapp, and provides all kinds of updates on other players like Kevin Slowey, Jeremie Tice, Russ Canzler, Loek Van Mil, Carlos Moncrief, Steven Wright, Anthony Gallas, Francisco Lindor, Ryan Merritt, Dorsyss Paulino and more.

After losing four straight, the Scrappers hoped a return to Eastwood Field would provide some much needed home-cooking. Despite a second straight strong start from Luis Dejesus , the Scrappers offense was unable to generate enough offense to give him a win as they lost 3-2 and dropped their record to 2-6 on the season.

On a perfect night at Penn State University, Mahoning Valley played its best game yet against the State College Spikes. An exciting game which came down to the final at bat, Mahoning Valley's 9th inning rally fell just short when Jairo Kelly grounded out against Spikes' releiver Pat Ludwig to end the game. The Scrappers (2-5) ended their series with the State College Spikes with nothing to show for it getting swept in four outings.

The Indians made lots of moves up and down the system from rookie level Arizona to the big league team in Cleveland, and Arthur Kinney is here to recap it all in his latest rundown of the transactions here at the IPI.

Mahoning Valley's offense struggled again on the road against the second opponent they've faced this year. The result was a 4-0 loss on Friday night to the State College Spikes, the short season Single-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Scrappers' lost their second straight game due to a lack of offense, and for the fourth consecutive game the Scrappers' failed to score more than two runs against their opponent.

The Radar Report is back with lots of gun readings on several Indians' prospects. This is a premium site feature which posts about once a month and provides the fastball and secondary velocities of players in the Indians' organization that I see. This week's report includes tons of information on Lake County pitchers and some of the new pitchers in Mahoning Valley.