On Peralta, you would be right with anyone else…  but his best power is to right center. I have no love for slap hits the other way, but he’s at his best when he’s driving the ball the other way. When he gets pull happy, he rolls over on everything.

See: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090510&content_id=4668280&vkey=news_cle&fext;=.jsp&c_id=cle&partnerId=rss_cle

He’s essentially a bigger, bulkier, far less talented version of Derek Jeter.

That said, I have no idea if he was driving the ball the other way or just getting lucky. And I piy you having to listen to Cleveland radio. I really do.

AP story on Yanks-O’s had this to say about the O’s pen:

“Much of the blame lies on the bullpen. The Orioles have outscored the opposition 79-59 in the first three innings this season but have been outscored 57-35 after the sixth inning.”

It would seem that if a team’s hitters are scoring less than half the runs in the last 3 innings than in the first 3, you shouldn’t be blaming a bullpen which (from these numbers at least) is doing no worse than the starters.

Beanster, I think you have something of a point, but there are a couple reasons why you would expect fewer runs after the 6th.  First of all, if the home team is winning, they wouldn’t bat in the 9th, so the number of innings played is actually fewer after the sixth (this is not made up for by extra innings - the O’s have played 3 extra innings and 18 non-extra innings games won by the home team).  Secondly, and more significantly, the average reliever has a better ERA than a starter, because it’s easier to be effective for one inning than for six or seven.

Grant, I’ll nitpick, Cecil was a supp 1st rounder.  IIRC, the Jays broadcasters mentioned he was the 38th pick.  Romero and Janssen are due back soon, both to make starts in AA this week.

I know Joe Morgan is widely criticized (often justifiably) but he made the same case last night talking about David Ortiz; that it was wildly overrated for Papi to “go the other way”.  Morgan’s point being he’s not being paid to slap singles to left (or go homerless for 300 abs or wherever he’s at right now)...

Oh and as for your rant on Peralta - I think what announcers are saying has some merit.  It depends on the hitter, of course, but most good hitters are able to drive the ball to all fields.  When guys struggle, a lot of the time it’s because they’re trying to hit it too hard, pulling off of everything.  This leaves them susceptible to breaking stuff and causes a lot of weak groundballs to the pull side.

When hitters are able to drive balls that get deeper in the zone, it indicates that they are being patient and seeing the ball well.

I’m no scout or anything, and I’m sure it’s much more complicated than that, but I would think that for a lot of hitters, hitting line drives to the opposite field is a good sign.

Two great catches this weekend Torii’s catch yesterday and Granderson’s catch on Friday.  I thought Grandy had a slightly better catch but Torii definitely outdid him on the post-catch celebration.  What was Grandy thinking not skipping, fist-pumping and chest-thumping?

I think what Brantley was trying to say was that you don’t go into the at-bat with a plan of “I’ll get a strikeout,” but you go in with the idea of making your pitches which, if done correctly, may in fact lead to a strikeout or at least should lead to some form of out.  The difference between throwing and pitching or something like that.

Of course, when the way Brantley said it vomited a sentence with the first half directly contradicting the second half, don’t be surprised if people point and laugh.