Minor Notes: Munoz sets Red Sox record, Scott & Liu win POTW

 Here are this week's minor league notes: 

• 
  History was made in Worcester this past week. On Saturday, utility man Yairo Munoz (pictured, right) singled in the 8th and went on to score on Joey Menses' grand slam home run. A long single in a game usually is not news, but when it is your 35th consecutive game with a hit, it's big news. The 35 game hit streak broke Dom Dimaggio's 34-game hit streak set way back in 1949. MiLB.com's Benjamin Hill has a video of the record-setting hit.

• Over the 35 games, the 26-year-old hit .396/.424/.542 with 15 stolen bases, three home runs, and 10 doubles over the 144 at-bats. He had six 3-hit games and 10 2-hit games. Consistency was not key as he saw time all over the diamond at eight positions - first base, third base, shortstop, left field, designated hitter, centerfield, rightfield, and second base. The WooSox have not played since Saturday and so on Tuesday, the streak will be back on the line.

• There have been a couple risers in the Red Sox system thus far this season, but when Baseball America's Chris Hilburn-Trenkle took a look at their rankings 10 stood out as having raised their stock the most including Portland righty Brayan Bello. He notes that Bello's fastball has jumped from the low-90s to the point now where he tops off at 99 mph and also pairs that with a slider and changeup that give him the potential for a three-pitch mix. Split between Greenville and Portland, Bello currently has a 3.64 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, and 13.1 K/9 over his first 17 starts of the season. He jumped up 14 spots on the Baseball America rankings, but his jump was even more extreme on the SoxProspects.com rankings, jumping up from 24th to start the year to his current spot at 7.

• Another player tearing it up recently is Salem's second basemen Nick Yorke. Despite a slump over the last week, Yorke is still hitting .351 with a 1.054 OPS over his last 28 days to raise his overall line to .310/.406/.458. With the recent promotion of Cameron Cannon, there is a potential opening at second base at Greenville, and NESN's Dakota Randall among others wonders if a promotion is imminent. 

• Baseball America also did a midseason update of their farm system rankings. The Red Sox system has continued to rise up the rankings, coming in ninth in the most recent edition. The ranking was buoyed by the recent addition of Marcelo Mayer who was selected with the fourth pick in the 2021 draft and ranks 32nd on their updated Top 100 rankings and the second-highest 2021 draft pick. The system also boasts two other top 25 players in first baseman Triston Casas (ranked 20th) and outfielder Jarren Duran (ranked 22nd). 

• Worcester's second baseman Jack Lopez was a teammate of Red Sox top prospect Triston Casas on Team USA at the 2020 Olympics. While Casas is still at Double-A, Lopez spoke about how his strong performance is due to his preparation as MassLive reports.

• While the Red Sox might be the most important baseball team in New England, the most important league may well be the Cape Cod League. Every summer, a slew of college players come through to prove their merit, and scouts flock to the cape in order to catch a rare glimpse of these college players in a wooden bat league. The Athletic's Jen McCaffrey spent some time with a college scout at the Cape Cod League to find out what it is really like to scout this elite talent in this idyllic setting. 

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Players of the Week (August 9th through August 15th): 

Stephen Scott, UT, Greenville Drive

6 G, 23 AB, 11 H, 5 2B, 1 HR, 5 R, 7 RBI, 5 BB, 5 K, .478/.571/.826

Scott (pictured, left) had a great week with his six-game week coming all against Bowling Green. He had a hit in all six games and reached base at least twice in five of the six. His week started especially hot when he had a home run and four doubles in his first three games. Showing his diversity, he also played four positions this week, seeing time at DH, right field, left field, and first base. 

After signing out of Vanderbilt as a 10th round pick in 2019, Scott played 61 games in Lowell that same season. This year, the 24-year-old started the season in Salem where he hit .259/.381/.453. He was then promoted to Greenville and since his promotion he has taken his performance from good to great, hitting .418/.484/.836 with five home runs and eight doubles over his first 14 games.

Chih-Jung Liu, RHP, Salem Red Sox

1 G, 0-0, 5 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 H, 2 BB, 10 K

On Wednesday, Liu had his best game of the season with a solo home run as his only real blemish on the day. The 22-year-old almost doubled his season-high in strikeouts, finishing with 10 strikeouts on 18 swinging strikes over only 78 pitches.

The 6-foot righty was signed as an international free agent in October of 2019 and this is his first professional season after 2020 was canceled. Overall, he currently has a 5.23 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and just over a strikeout per inning over his first 32 and 2/3 innings. However, 8 of those earned runs came over one outing where he finished just 2/3 of an inning and if you remove that one start, he has a 3.09 ERA over his other seven starts. He is currently ranked 47th on the SoxProspects.com rankings.

Photo Credit: Yairo Munoz and Stephen Scott by Kelly O'Connor.

Will Woodward is a Co-Owner and Senior Staff Writer for SoxProspects.com. Follow him on Twitter @SPWill.

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