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We all know that the Indians are struggling despite beating Boston last night.  Worst of all, some of the pieces of the puzzle that we thought were going to be relatively predictable seem to be underperforming right along with the question mark players.  Jhonny Peralta is one of those who is underperforming.  Or is he?

Jhonny Peralta is definitely underperforming our expectations but maybe our expectations were wrong.  Peralta is turning into a notoriously slow starter.  Last season Peralta finished the year with a 0.276 batting average with a 0.331 on-base percentage with 23 homers, 89 RBI, 42 doubles and 48 walks.  A decent season, right?  As a lot of you will remember, it was really a long slow process to get to those solid numbers from his horrendous start.

In 2008, Jhonny’s numbers were this after 27 games.

Compare that to his first 27 games this season.

Now, I know it is worse, but not by much.  Jhonny Peralta is playing about exactly as we could have predicted based on the slow start that he had last season.  And just for good measure, 2007 wasn’t too much better.

This is not to say that I can justify Peralta’s start.  Obviously something needs to change to try and avoid these sluggish starts to the season for the entire Indians team.  Peralta is just a piece of that.  What this does point out is that this is something the Indians organization and the coaching staff could have predicted.  And if you can predict it, you should be able to try to make adjustments and manage problems.  Certainly this season’s start goes to show that this organization hasn’t solved Peralta’s problems or the organization’s problems as a whole when it comes to starting seasons slowly.