• Albert Pujols showed that when it comes to fielding, like that great Seinfeld character Slippery Pete, he’s the best — and the worst. With a runner on first during Saturday’s game, Pujols was playing behind the runner with the lefthanded Kosuke Fukudome batting. Fukudome hit a liner right at Pujols, which he promptly dropped, hoping to be able to throw to second to begin a double play. It was ruled a lineout, but it was an example of how Pujols is always thinking. On the other hand, as the Cubs were hammering the nails in the Cardinals coffin Sunday, Fukudome grounded weakly to Russ Springer, who turned to throw to first. Pujols, again playing deep, took his time getting to the bag, causing Springer to double-clutch. Pujols strafed his way to the base, like a tight end coming across the middle of the field, and Springer threw errantly. Springer drew the error, but Pujols had put him in a tough spot.
• Pujols hit his 300th home run Friday. While it’s an accomplishment, fans shouldn’t deceive themselves to think that it’s the same feat it once was. After all, of the five players to reach 300 the fastest, four of them did so in the (quiet now) steroid era.
• Tony La Russa and Troy Glaus complained about the ninth-inning strike calls in Friday’s game (TLR: "Check the tape. I think they’ll see there’s a legitimate gripe."). Did he have a "legitimate gripe"? Let’s look at the called pitches for each side:
  
  It would appear that, if anything, Cardinal pitchers had the benefit of as many calls as the Cubs. Indeed, while the Cardinals didn’t have any pitches inside the zone called balls, the Cubs had a couple, and the Cardinals had more pitches outside the zone called strikes. It just so happened that of the four (or so) pitches outside the zone that went the Cubs’ way, three of them happened in the ninth inning.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under by the numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.