He can hit a grand slam with nobody on base. He once hit a ground-rule triple. He made Chuck Norris cry during a game of rock-paper-scissors. He calls his own balls and strikes, and nobody complains. He signs huge contracts just to make his agent look good. He once bruised Yadier Molina‘s ribs with a friendly handshake. He steals bases without sliding, because he looks good in his uniform. He often pauses during plays to admire the beauty of a bad throw only to scoop the ball out of the dirt. He doesn’t often strike out, but when he does, he does so with style just to make the players on the other team feel better about themselves. He’s the most interesting man…in St. Louis.
Albert Pujols doesn’t always hit home runs…but he could.
Stay awesome, mang.
Face it. Albert’s way cooler than the dude in the dorky commercial that I’m completely spoofing. He does incredible things off of the field, but it’s really what he’s done on the field that is making news lately. Really, really ridiculous news. News that is deserving of hyperbole in my opinion.
Pujols has started 2011 by hitting .252/.329/.431/.759 with 7 hr and 19 rbi. Based on what some people are writing/saying/scribbling, the guy is practically a 45 year-old version of Jason Giambi and should be carted off the field. Is it really time to hit the imaginary panic button? Who really cares if he only gets to a .288 average or something like that, if he still hits 35 hr and drives in 110 runs or something close? He’s working out the kinks, and the Cardinals are doing just fine while he does so. That’s a luxury that they didn’t have in recent years, but they have it for now. Why not take advantage of it?
Batting average is more than a bit overrated as a statistical tool.
There, I said it. If you watched the game yesterday very closely, you could see a great example of what I mean. In my opinion, Josh Johnson is one of the best 10 starting pitchers in all of baseball, and he’s not exactly new to the top 10 fraternity. I fully believe that he had no intention of ever giving Pujols a pitch to hit. He was going to either get the call at the very edge/corner of the zone, or he was willing to walk Albert on 4 straight pitches. Nobody else in the Cardinals lineup got that treatment – not even the 2 guys hitting around the .400 mark. It didn’t matter to Johnson that Albert was batting below .250 coming into the game. Just look at that on base percentage for a “struggling” player. That’s all about respect, and that same respect was being shown by Johnson. Albert still made adjustments and made solid contact on balls outside the zone anyway. Advantage: Pujols. When Albert starts hitting the pitcher’s pitch for base hits, that’s when I think he’s on his way back to normal.
Of course, that’s just my opinion, and I’m not the guy who can hit a grand slam with nobody on base.
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