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.
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