Indians Prospect Insider

It's amazing what happens when you get quality starts from your starting pitcher. The Indians have now received three straight quality starts and won the last two (and should have three wins in a row), the most recent of which being last night's 5-3 win over the Red Sox. Jason Ruggiero steps in and provides his second thoughts on the game.

One thing the AZL Indians squad has rarely had an issue with is scoring runs. On Thursday night, they scored seven of them on 15 hits against the AZL Brewers in a 7-2 win. Sean Mahon was once again on-hand to take in the game with scouts, and has all kinds of nuggets on the pitch speeds and effectiveness of Mitch Brown, Joshua Nervis and others, and also some insight into the performances of Dorsyss Paulino, Anthony Santander, D'Vone McClure and others.

Matt LaPorta and Russ Canzler went back-to-back, Delvi Cid flashed his speed and a little bit of power, and Dorssys Paulino did the sort of Dorssys Paulino things that Jim Piascik just can't get enough of last night. Yet, a very familiar name managed to muscle his way to the top of Around The Farm. As always, click on the link to find out who that is and how the rest of the Tribe's minor league system did in today's edition of Around The Farm.

Despite scoring almost as many runs as they had in their last four games combined, the Scrappers dropped their sixth straight game Thursday, losing in 11 to the Batavia Muckdogs in their first meeting of the year.

The Lake County Captains (25-21) had their three game winning streak snapped by the Great Lakes Loons (21-25) on Thursday night when they fell by a count of 6-3.

The Carolina Mudcats clubbed four doubles, and used three of them to plate runs in a 3-2 thriller over the Salem Red Sox on Thursday night at LewisGaleField. The win earns the Mudcats (24-22, 56-60) a win of the three-game series. J.D Reichenbach (4-5) dealt two scoreless innings for the win.

Portland shortstop Xander Bogaerts hit a homerun in his Double A debut and the Portland pitching staff kept Akron in check for a majority of the night as the Seadogs beat the Aeros 5-3 Thursday night at Canal Park. Portland took two of three from the Aeros in the series and won four of the six games against the Aeros this year.

After a stretch of great defensive performances, the Columbus Clippers (63-57) struggled on both sides of the ball on Thursday night as they fell to the Durham Bulls (57-63) by a final score of 12-2.

The Captains had another winning week and are still two games up on South Bend for the final spot in the playoffs. Second baseman Jose Ramirez continues to terrorize Midwest League pitching and lefty Kyle Petter rebounded with a good week of work out of the pen. Lianna Holub recaps the week that was in here Captains notebook "On-Deck with the Captains".

Today the Cleveland Indians announced that Triple-A Columbus pitching coach Ruben Niebla has been named interim Major League Pitching Coach and has replaced Scott Radinsky who has been dismissed from his post. Niebla, 40, is currently in his 12th season in the Indians organization, having spent the 2011 and 2012 seasons as the pitching coach at Columbus.

The defense wasn’t pretty, but the offense and pitching were incredibly solid on Wednesday night as the AZL Indians beat the AZL Reds 8-6. Centerfielder Tyler Booth got things going with an opposite field double and that continued to be the trend for Booth who went 3-for-4 with three opposite field hits.

There are lots of good things happening in the Indians minor league system and this week Tony touches on the hot pitching of late from Jeanmar Gomez and the incredible turnaround by Tony Wolters, has all sorts of comments from the Indians Player Development staff on players at Mahoning Valley, provides injury updates on several players like Tyler Naquin and LeVon Washington, and lots of stuff on Cord Phelps, Paolo Espino, Todd Hankins, Jerrud Sabourin, Jacob Lee, Nelson Rodriguez and more!

Low-A Lake County lefty Shawn Morimando has remained a model of consistency in the ever-shifting Lake County starting rotation this season. The pitching staff has seen various players converted from relievers, sent to the bullpen, called up, or sent down, but Morimando has been one Captain to answer the bell every fifth day for manager Dave Wallace. Mike Zavagno recently sat down with Morimando to discuss his season to date.

Every streak has to come to an end. Even for the Cleveland Indians. Losers of 11 straight, it did not look good for the Tribe heading into Wednesday's third and final game in a three game series with the Minnesota Twins. Thankfully, outstanding pitching coupled with some nice, timely hitting helped the Indians avoid tying a franchise record for futility.

It was a big night for prospects in the Indians system, perhaps in celebration of the Indians ending their eleven-game hit streak. Felix Sterling rolled out seven K's in four innings of relief in Arizona. Giovanny Urshela rolled out three extra base hits in his second three-hit performance in as many nights. Roberto Perez and Paulo Espino led the Aeros to another win. The top of the ATF heap?...is a guy that could be in Cleveland...well...today...after the jump...

he Salem Red Sox scored three runs, with two outs, in the bottom of the ninth to drop the Carolina Mudcats 7-6 on Wednesday night at LewisGale Field. Salem (18-27, 59-55) appeared down to the end with Xander Bogaerts at the plate and trailing 6-4. Against reliever Grant Sides (2-1), the shortstop smacked an 0-2 pitch off the right field wall for a run-scoring triple.