Minor Issues: Jeanmar Gomez throws perfect game

WHAT'S THE NEWS

Some roster moves to get updated on.. Boards reflected.

Because of an injury to George Lombard, the Indians had to do some utility player shuffling. They've called Mickey Hall up to Columbus to be the reserve outfielder, and Cristo Arnal up to Akron to take Hall's place. Matt Willard is now with Kinston to take Arnal's place.

Nate Recknagel got the call to Kinston, hopefully another 2008 draftee can help add some firepower to the suddenly silent Kinston lineup. John Allman was sent to Lake County.

Make sure you keep up with the comedic stylings (comedic? maybe, I found it funny) of Vinnie Pestano and his blog over at IPI. He interviewed fellow Minor League Bloger Neil Wagner, who's also recently updated.

Finally.. I'm sure you've heard it by now, so it's not news, but Hector Rondon is back in the rotation. I say, Thank You.

COLUMBUS

Well the Clippers started off their four game set with the former Triple-A team of the Cleveland Indians with a win. Not only was this the first meeting between Columbus and Buffalo, this is the first trip to Buffalo since the Indians wrapped up their Triple-A partnership since last year.

Trevor Crowe, Jordan Brown, Chris Gimenez and Wyatt Toregas are all familiar with the now visiting park, and all contributed.

Crowe had the best night though, going 4-5 with two runs scored, a double, and a stolen base. Browna and Andy Marte chipped in with RBI's, but it was.. Dun dun dunnnnn!

PRONK WATCH: El Pronk with three hits and three RBI for the Columbus team. I'm convinced he's ready, but with the DH not being available this weekend, the Indians are just going to bide their time. Expect a move Monday.

Zach Jackson got win number three, Vinnie Chulk pitched a scoreless inning and while John Meloan got a hold in his inning pitched, he gave up another run.

Rafael Perez Update: Perez picked up his second save with a scoreless ninth, but he surrendered two hits.

AKRON

The Aeros improved to 29-9 yesterday with a 3-0 shutout win over Trenton.

But that isn't even the first part of the story. As I said yestereday, a certain Aeros pitcher threw a perfecto.

Jeanmar Gomez did indeed go the full-nine innings, not surrendering a single hit or walk, retiring the entire lineup for Trenton, 27 up and 27 down.

He also struck out eight hitters.

Quickly now Gomez is starting to put himself into the discussion as a legit major league prospect, quite on the level of Hector Rondon.

"We've always talked about them as being relatively equal in value and projection," Indians farm director Ross Atkins said.

"It's just that Hector kind of became a man first. Now Jeanmar's becoming one."

But what was working for Gomez on this special day? Pitching coach Ruben Niebla explains.

''He had very good fastball command, throwing 75 percent of his fastballs for strikes,'' Aeros pitching coach Ruben Niebla said. ''He threw first-pitch strikes to 21 of the 27 batters, so he was ahead of everyone all afternoon. Then his slider got better as the game went on, so they couldn't just sit up there looking fastball."

All Gomez is credited with is saying he can't stop "thanking God for this beautiful day."

I don't blame him.. congrats to Jeanmar for his special feat. A perfect game is something to behold, even at the Double-A level.

Offensive: Rivero, Mills, and Arnal all with two hits... With Rivero and Santana knocking in two of the three runs.

KINSTON

Kinston fell to Potomac in extras yesterday, a run in the top of the tenth was not enough for the K-Tribe to overcome as they now have lost nine of their last ten.

Cord Phelps had two hits while Ron Rivas had two RBI. But that was really it offensively. This Kinston squad is really struggling to get enough runs with McBride gone and especially yesterday with Chisenhall getting a day off from starting.

Ryan Morris went only four innings, didn't give up too much, but his effort went by the wayside thanks to the bullpen. CC Lee, Garrison Campfield, and Kyle Landis pitched five scoreless combined, until Landis took his third loss on the year by giving up the run in the tenth.

LAKE COUNTY

The Captains couldn't earn a split with Greensboro on Thursday as they dropped the fourth game of the series.

The Captains matched the eight hits collected by Greensboro, but could only muster two runs to their eight. Abner Abreu and Chris Nash had the runs knocked in.

Alexander Perez got tagged for that magic number of eight runs in three innings worth of work. The bullpen did a good job in relief, pitching five scoreless. But the hole was too deep for the Captains.