Enemy Lines

Two advance scouts, one from each league, reflect on what they saw and heard last week:

The high strikes we've seen called most often this year are hanging curves and sliders. For some reason fastballs in that spot don't seem to be called as much. It's thrown some hitters for a loop, especially the A's: Their whole offense is based on patience at the plate and working the count, and it took them awhile to figure out what was going to be called a strike and what wasn't....

Marlins leftfielder Cliff Floyd is finally coming into his own. We always wondered what he could do if he stayed healthy for a year. Now he's showing us (.355, 28 homers, 87 RBIs through Sunday). He can hit as well as anybody from the left side of the plate....

It appears that Mariners rightfielder Ichiro Suzuki is getting tired, because he has looked very ordinary for about a month. It's not just that the U.S. major leagues play a longer season than the Japanese leagues, but also that there's a lot more travel across time zones here. Don't forget: Ichiro was hurt last year and didn't play a full season....

Pirates third baseman Aramis Ramirez is quietly having a good year for a bad team. He still needs work defensively, but he's being more selective at the plate and he's showing some power....

It will be interesting to see how pitchers who switch leagues in trades this week perform for the rest of the season. National League pitchers still throw a lot more fastballs than American Leaguers and get away with it. If an NL guy goes to an AL team and tries that, he'll get killed.