Pujols Rejoins the Cards' Surging Offense

Monday night, I spoke with my buddy Mike about baseball. We talked about fantasy where I'm selling the farm for draft picks in my keeper league more shamelessly than the Pirates are trading for prospects, but also about how Pujols' slump had to be nearing its end. I don't know what it was that got him so on again in such a hurry. Perhaps after he flew out in the first, making what was his only out of the game, a Mets fan heckled him, asking him," How do you like them apples?" Now, I have great respect for Albert, but his English isn't the best, so perhaps he misinterpreted the comment as a challenge to hit the apple in center field. Seven innings later, he accomplished this feat. Two innings later, after Mark DeRosa was plunked to give the Cardinals the lead, he officially went into beast mode. He clubbed his second bomb of the game, metaphorically bitch-slapping the Mets. He looks like he actually bitch-slapped one of them in this photo. I suppose he also could've been offering Omir Santos a high five as if to say," Hey, it's not your fault that I'm this awesome."

Loading the bases for Pujols this year is like wearing an "I Love America" t-shirt in Iran. It's a bad idea to do it and something very bad will happen to you if you go ahead and do it anyways. Pujols is now 7-for-9 this year with the bases loaded with five home runs, 24 RBI, and a 2.444 slugging percentage. His five slams are now tied for the National League record for a single season with Ernie Banks, who did it in 1955. The Major League record in case you're wondering, is six and is shared by Don Mattingly who did it in 1987 and Travis Hafner who did it in 2006 when he was still relevant. Here's a video below of his second of the year against the Cubs from youtube poster bmentel01. This is the only one of the five I've seen in person this year.

Earlier in Tuesday's game, I was thinking how bad it would be for the Cardinals to lose when they had managed to score four runs against Johan Santanna. They even added one more in the eighth after the thought had crossed my mind. They then gutted out two runs in the ninth against the record holder for most saves in a season, Francisco Rodriquez to force the game past regulation. This was another gritty win that only goes to playoff caliber teams and was the second time they've gotten one in less than a week. The offense is really starting to click. As long as the bullpen can keep it together, the Cards will be just fine. On a side note, Yadier Molina is making a case for another Gold Glove. He ended consecutive innings on Tuesday by throwing out Alex Cora and Angel Pagan, both attempting to steal second. The latter was especially impressive because Pagan got a good jump on a breaking ball and Yadi gunned him down without even standing up. To quote my organic chem teacher with respect to running on Yadi, "It's a bad practice and I discourage it."

One of the other big baseball stories from Tuesday was Prince Fielder getting nailed by the Dodgers' Guillermo Mota and attempting to come after him in the clubhouse after the game had ended. He had to be restrained by teammates and security personnel. I guess Prince is willing to come off his vegetarian diet in cases of extreme anger as well as hunger.

The photo was found on wordpress but no credit was given to the photographer.