Albert Pujols Slump Watch has gone well into its second month, and the time for concern is—well, coming closer than I and presumably most St. Louis fans ever expected it to. So, Tuesday's good news: He went 3-4 with two RBI! Tuesday's bad news: Those hits were infield singles, and Albert Pujols is not Ichiro! The Los Angeles Angels took this strange moment to announce that they'd fired longtime hitting coach and controversy-generator Mickey Hatcher, which seems appropriate—though unless they plan on hiring Dee Dee Pujols, I'm not sure Albert will listen to the new guy any more than the old guy.

Those slap-hits brings his seasonal line up to .212/.248/.288—fittingly for someone who just nabbed two infield singles, he's somehow stuck on an empty .212. He's got a lot of work still to do, but given his high line drive rate to date—it's at 22%, a little above his career average—he's owed a few of these three-singles-in-four-chances nights.

If Albert Pujols's goal was to slump badly enough to slough off most of St. Louis's disgust toward his post-contract behavior... it's worked for me, at least.