OK, its admittedly been a little while since I slapped up some love for the Indians. Please forgive me, I'm still recovering from my Browns draft hysteria. I admit, I even think I may have gotten carried away to a point with all the attention devoted to the Brown and Orange. To tell the truth, part of me feels like I pulled a Rip Van Winkle, woke up, and suddenly realized the Cavs have reached the 2nd round of the playoffs
as well as the Tribe being in first place after actually having a good April for a change. Was the first round of the NFL draft
really that long?
Wait, all this happened in one month to the
benefit of Cleveland's three sports teams??? I think as soon as I'm finished I'm gonna just head to the store for plenty of bottled water in case the rapture is indeed coming. You know, just to be sure.
Moving on.
Quietly lost in the sauce so far attention-wise this season for the first place Indians has been the resurrection in production by shortstop Jhonny Peralta. Currently, Jhonny-cakes leads all American League shortstops in homers (7), runs batted in (23), and slugging percentage (.515). Granted, these numbers are only through May 7th, but this is a big deal for the Indians and Tribe fans alike after Jhonny's nightmare last season.
I'm sure there are some die-hards who aren't really suprised by this rebound compared to last year. I'm also quite sure that many more Wahoo cynics expected an even worse season from Peralta while they complain about how much they miss Omar Vizquel as they pound another Pabst. However, there is one group of fans that really shouldn't be suprised and they have a credible reason. Those people, myself included are former LASIK patients.
As several of you know, Peralta got corrective eye surgery in the off-season. The increase in production is no coincidence this season. When you have bad vision like that, you can get by during day games, but at night its an absolute nightmare.
(*DISCLAIMER: This is not a LASIK infomercial. I am sure other possible excuses for Johnny-cakes' rough ride of '06 could also be poor conditioning as well as the dreaded "sophmore slump." )
"I can see! ...but who the hell am I?"
I can say from experience that before I got my surgery, I dreaded playing my weekly Sunday night softball games. I was an outfielder and I literally had no depth perception to the point that I nearly "Canseco-ed" a few balls off my head out there. Thankfully, they were meaningless beer league games so I got away with looking like Lupis from "The Bad News Bears" out there...though it may have cost me some extra money at the bar after the games from time to time.
Ladies and gentlemen, you're token "softball guy" story of the 2007 season!
So ANYWAY, having Peralta back has been exactly what the line-up has needed. Nobody is expecting the guy to give Travis Hafner a run at the team home run title or anything; but if he can keep this up, having Jhonny produce while hitting 5th or 6th would be essential for a Wahoo playoff run. Welcome back Peralta.
Read the complete post at http://kidcleveland.blogspot.com/2007/05/return-of-peralta.html