Background: Pujols has officially replaced Barry Bonds as baseball’s most feared hitter. In his first 17 games this season, Pujols hit 11 home runs. As a team, the Giants entered Saturday with 12 home runs. Pujols is the reigning National League MVP, and with the new Busch Stadium playing smaller than the old version, there’s a chance the Cardinals slugger could reach 50 home runs this season.
What’s up: Pujols is turning box scores into his own personal diary of havoc. He hit three home runs a week ago against the Reds, willing and flexing his team to victory. After Pujols homered in the first two games against Pittsburgh, he began getting fewer pitches to hit.
What’s next: It wouldn’t hurt Pujols to learn the lyrics to Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” It could become the soundtrack to his season. It no longer makes much sense to pitch to Pujols. He has armored protection around him in Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds, which admittedly makes the decision to put him aboard difficult. But it’s easier to sleep knowing those two beat you, rather than Pujols. At this point, you half expect Pujols to begin his postgame interviews thusly: “I find the simplicity of this game amusing.”
As Rockies reliever Jose Mesa put it, “He’s in a league all alone. There’s Albert and there’s everybody else.”
Renck’s take: At his current pace, Pujols, 26, will walk a career-high 172 times, obliterating his previous high of 97, set last year. No one likes to see stars turned into spectators. But it’s hard to come up with a reasonable argument for pitching to Pujols. Though he can expand his strike zone periodically, he has hit .343 with runners in scoring position over the last two-plus seasons. As such, here’s a crazy prediction based on his ridiculous start: Pujols will finish with more homers than strikeouts. He hasn’t fanned more than 69 times since his 2001 rookie season and whiffed just 52 times in 2004, when he clubbed 46 home runs.
