After a rough start to the month of May, the Indianapolis Indians have turned it around with their eighth win in the last 11 games. Thursday night’s 7-5 victory over the Charlotte Knights put the Tribe’s record at 27-19, four and a half games ahead of the International League West Division second-place Columbus Clippers.

The Tribe scored first on Thursday, posting two runs in the first inning when Matt Hague hit a two-run homer off Knight’s starter Erik Johnson. Two more runs were added in the second when Michael Martinez hit a sac-fly and Chris Dickerson hit a solo homer.

Indians’ starter Jeff Locke struggled in the bottom of the second. He gave up three runs, but still managed to get the win and earn a quality start. Outside of the second inning, when he walked to two and gave up the three runs on three hits – a single, double and triple in that order – Locke finished the game giving up five hits, walking five and striking out four in six innings.

In the fifth and sixth innings, the Tribe posted a run each. The first was a Gregory Polanco RBI single; the second was on a RBI groundout by Nevin Ashley. The Knights answered these two runs with two of their own in the bottom of the eighth, but the Tribe scored another run in the ninth on a Dickerson RBI double.

Tyler Waldron, Daniel Schlereth and Josh Kinney made appearances from the bullpen. The Knights’ two runs in the eighth belonged to Waldron. Adam Wilk, who has three wins and three losses in eight games as a Tribe starter, earned his first ever career save.

Friday night’s game starts at 7:05 p.m. in Charlotte. Vance Worley is the expected starter. The Tribe returns home on Monday to face off against the Buffalo Bisons in a 6:05 p.m. Memorial Day game. They will be wearing special camouflage jerseys, as modeled by Julia Moffitt of WTHR in the tweet below:

Miss @JuliaMoffitt13 models the @indyindians camo jersey they’ll wear Monday. #GoTribe pic.twitter.com/bv35kuWHFu

— Chuck Lofton (@ChuckWTHR) May 23, 2014