(Busch Stadium) As he sat in the St. Louis Cardinals dugout after his 4th inning home run, Jhonny Peralta received some surprising news from teammate Matt Holliday.
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“He said that’s 200 homers for you,” shared Peralta. “I said, wow, I didn’t know that one.”
While he may have not been aware he was close to the milestone, the significance of learning that he is one of only 11 shortstops to hit 200 home runs and only the 23rd Dominican-born player was not lost on Peralta.
“I know it’s really important to me,” he stated. “Like you said, a lot of the shortstops don’t hit a lot of homers so more than anything for me, I feel proud with what I do.”
Though he played his 243rd game at third base tonight, Peralta has appeared at shortstop in 1459 games over his career.
“The first time I started to play baseball, I started at second base–believe it or not, but second base,” said Peralta. “After that, growing up, more and more I played shortstop and third base. More than everything, I felt better at short from the beginning and the manager that I had in Little League, he said I had good hands and kept me at shortstop.”
Besides the home run, Peralta has been swinging a hot bat at the plate–reaching base safely in his last six games while batting .409 (9-22).
photo credit: Bill Greenblatt/UPI
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