What have you done for me lately?

Here in St. Louis, Missouri, people live and breath baseball. St. Louis Cardinals baseball. This is Cardinal Nation and home of the greatest player in major league baseball, one Albert Pujols. Now, everyone likes to get a good start off to the beginning of the season, the Cardinals and Pujols included. Only this year, the first week of the season was not so good. The Cardinals lost the season home opener and lost their first two series to the Padres and the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates. Mr. Pujols didn't fare much better and was given some of the blame to the poor start. He was hitting .128 and seemed to be hitting into double plays at an alarming rate. Given that this is the final year of his current contract with the Cardinals, people were starting to question whether or not he deserved the $16 million he is getting, much less the $30 million his agent was shooting for when his contract talks resume at the end of the season.

Was the pressure getting to him finally? Well, the Cardinals and Albert hit the road for the west coast and lo and behold, the Cardinals started winning and El Hombre started hitting! The Cardinals have won 5 of their last 6 games, the last 5 games they have had 14 or more hits. And Mr. Pujols? Well, he has 9 hits in his last 19 at bats, 3 of them home runs, and he has raised his batting average to .241 which is still below .300 but is headed in the right direction. So everyone can calm down and take a sigh of relief. Albert Pujols is hitting again and the Cardinals are making their way to first place in their division. Chill out people! It's a long season.