Looks like all the discussion of Albert Pujols' demise were premature. So far, in four games since the break, he's got 4 HR and 5 RBI. (You can find that info on his batting splits page.)

There was also a lot of talk recently about the Phillies 10,000th loss. I'm not sure that number is terribly meaningful, especially since most of their truly terrible seasons came in the 1930s and 1940s.

But I wanted to comment on a stat about both Pujols and the Phillies:

Basically, it's that the Phillies have owned Pujols over his career, unlikely as that seems. Again if you look at his splits page (linked above) and scroll down to his performance versus various opponents, his numbers against the Phils stick out like a sore thumb. For any team he's played at least 10 games against, he has a batting average under .300 against only the Mets (.299/.402/.624 in 42 games), the Cubs (.285/.371/.557 in 103 games), and the Phillies (staggering .288/.362/.546 in 41 games, and that includes his recent barrage of homers over the weekend.)

Compare these numbers to his performances against the Reds (.374/.444/.679 in 107 games, with 29 HR and 89 RBI), the Rockies (.348/.454/.727 in 47 games, with 17 HR and 45 RBI), or the Pirates (.356/.439/.706 in 100 games, with 32 HR and 91 RBI.)

Granted, most of Pujols' bad numbers against the Phils were in his first 4 years, when he had 0 HR in 23 games against them. But over the last 3 years, he's got 10 HR in 18 games. So, he seems to be reverting to the mean there. If he can do the same against the divisional rival Cubs, the Cards might become unstoppable in that division.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 9:08 am and is filed under Splits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.