Victor Goes Yard!

Bottom of the second. No score. Indians vs. White Sox. John Danks on the mound, Jhonny Peralta on first. Victor Martinez at the dish. Danks checks the runner, delivers the first pitch to Martinez. CRACK! Victor launches the ball deep to the leftield line… it… is… outta’ here! Indians fans cheered as the Tribe took a 2-0 lead in a game they would go onto win 9-3. Believe it or not, this was the first home run of the season for Victor.

Yes, Victor no longer belongs to the 200+ PA/0 HR club. Its other members: Joey Gathright, Chone Figgins, Omar Vizquel, Brendan Ryan, Miguel Cairo, Augie Ojeda, and Juan Pierre will have to say goodbye to their colleague.

Sure, Victor’s season has been hindered by injuries but, still, 57 games and neary a dinger until last night? From Victor Martinez? The guy might not be Barry Bonds out there, but over the last four years he was an extremely solid bet to OPS around .860, with 20+ home runs and 35+ doubles. Including last night, Victor is hitting just .274/.328/.344, with 1 home run and 12 doubles.

According to his gamelogs, this is by far the most games he has ever gone without a home run. From April 16, 2005-May 27, 2005, he went homerless in a string of 32 games. This almost doubled that amount. As Dave mentioned last week, his replacement Kelly Shoppach is leading all AL catchers in home runs, so the Indians are still getting production from that department, just not where they expected. The Tribe won’t make the playoffs this year but a hearty congratulations goes out to V-Mart on his first home run of the year. I hope he got to keep the ball.