Results tagged ‘ Albert Pujols ’

Pujols pulled — UPDATED

Albert Pujols has been removed from tonight’s game due to what the Cardinals are calling “mild tightness in his left hamstring.”

With two outs in the seventh inning of the Cardinals’ game against the Reds, Pujols hit a groundball to the left side. He  pulled up on his way down the baseline and was thrown out despite a late and offline throw from Miguel Cairo.

After Pujols descended into the dugout, the Cardinals training staff looked him over, he was removed from the game. Lance Berkman moved to first base, with Jon Jay entering the game in right field for Berkman.

I’ll of course update this after we get down to the clubhouse and get more information.

-M.

Saturday tidbits: Holliday follow-up and an anniversary

It’s shaping up to be a gorgeous day in downtown St. Louis. Already into the 60s, and only a few clouds.

* The Cardinals are going to wait until Monday or Tuesday before deciding whether to place Matt Holliday on the DL. And yes, per TLR, it’s a question of whether they make a move, not when or what exactly the move will be. There’s still some hope that Holliday could be back in under 15 days, and if they felt confident that would be the case, it’s no guarantee that they’d make a move.

* In the interim,  both the 4 spot and left field will be something of a job share. As you saw in today’s lineup, Allen Craig is playing left field while David Freese is batting fourth. Craig and Jon Jay will likely split time in left field. As for the cleanup spot, it looks like Freese against lefties and Lance Berkman against right-handers.

* Today is the 10th anniversary of Albert Pujols’ Major League debut. I’ll have a story on the site about it a little later today, so do be sure to come back and check it out. Should be a nifty little package.

And, finally, the playlist:

Soul Coughing, “Soundtrack to Mary”
Belly, “Feed the Tree”
Cake, “When You Sleep”
Violent Femmes, “Prove My Love”
R.E.M., “Exhuming McCarthy”

-M.

Note of the night/Stat of the day, March 31

Note of the night: As you may have heard, Albert Pujols had a bit of a rough one at the plate today. He hit a couple of balls harder than the results might show, but in the end, eight outs in a game is eight outs in a game. And that’s what Pujols had: 0-for-5 with three double plays.

 

He’s never before had a game with more than five hitless at-bats, and he’s never had an 0-for-5 with more than one double play. It was the 29th 0-for-5 of Pujols’ career. Only eight previous times had he even hit into two double plays. By my rough count, Pujols had never made more than six outs at the plate in a single game, and on Thursday he made eight.

 

As for the historical context, there was plenty. MLB Network reported that it’s the first time since double plays have been kept as a stat that a player grounded into three in an Opening Day game. According to STATS Inc., it was the 100th time in history that a player has grounded into three or more DPs in any game. Joe Torre has the only 4 GIDP game in history, on July 21, 1975.

 

“It’s a bad game, man,” Pujols said. “Am I going to shoot myself up? It’s just a bad game and that’s it. That’s the way it goes. That’s baseball.”

 

You’re probably going to read that quote several different ways tonight and tomorrow morning. The exact words he said were “shoot myself up,” but it was very clear in talking to him that he mixed a couple of expressions together, as all of us do sometimes. I think it’s the unfortunate combination of “Am I going to shoot myself?” and “Am I going to beat myself up?” Many of you may not care about this kind of minutiae, but those of us in the press box all talked about it quite a bit as we were walking back from the clubhouse.

 

* Note — a good deal of this research is courtesy of the amazing Baseball-Reference.com Play Index.

 

Stat of the day: Today’s stat of the day looks ahead, but I think it’s a cool one. I discovered it in putting together the “probable starter” blurb for Chris Carpenter’s next start.

 

The last 13 times Carpenter has faced the Pirates, the Cardinals have won the game. In those games, Carpenter is 10-0 with a 1.85 ERA. He’s racked up 97 1/3 innings, an average of 7.49 per start, with 88 strikeouts, 19 walks and five home runs allowed.

 

That’s pretty good.

 

G’night…

-M.

Wednesday camp tidbits: Waiting on a lineup

* With knuckleballer R.A. Dickey on the mound for the Mets, the Cardinals will not be sending out what you would consider an ‘A’ lineup today. However, it’s still not announced. Tyler Henley will be starting in right field, though, with Jon Jay moving to center. Andrew Brown will start at first. TLR said that Matt Holliday will be in there but did not commit to any other regulars.

* Albert Pujols, who had his foot stepped on during Monday’s game, and Colby Rasmus, who was hit in the hip by a pitch, are both out. But TLR said they’re both expected to play tomorrow — and he did not indicate that they’re out today BECAUSE of those dings.
* Jaime Garcia will start the game in Springfield, weather permitting.
* Daniel Descalso beat out Matt Carpenter for a variety of reasons, TLR said, but the two main ones were Descalso’s versatility and the desire for Carpenter to get at-bats. He said that in his mind, at least, the 40-man roster was not a factor.
* TLR said his worry with Jason Motte is Motte’s pitches, not his confidence.
* Today’s game is on ESPN.
And, finally, the playlist:
The Rolling Stones, “Dead Flowers”
Dramarama, “(I’d Like To) Volunteer, Please”
Letters to Cleo, “From Under the Dust”
Soul Coughing, “The Idiot Kings”
R.E.M., “So. Central Rain”
-M.

Tuesday camp tidbits: Berkman and B games

* TLR said that Lance Berkman will be held out of pretty much all throwing for a few days to rest his sore elbow. He’s the starting DH today and won’t be back in the outfield for a few days. He also won’t throw in drills.

* For Thursday’s split-squad day, Kyle McClellan will pitch at home against Washington, while Jaime Garcia will start the game against the Mets at Port St. Lucie.
* No starting has been named for the Saturday game at home against the Astros.
* On March 9, the Cardinals and Braves will play a morning “B” game at the Braves complex, at Atlanta’s request.
* TLR had quite a bit of praise for Adron Chambers and Matt Carpenter this morning. Doesn’t mean either is going to make the club, but safe to say they’ve both made a good impression.
* Albert Pujols is out of today’s lineup but will play tomorrow and Thursday, then skip the trip to Kissimmee on Friday.
Today’s playlist:
Tanya Donelly, “World On Fire”
The Hold Steady, “Arms and Hearts”
R.E.M., “New Test Leper”
Aimee Mann, “How Am I Different”
The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Sidewalking”
-M.

Pujols talks over

Albert Pujols will not sign a new contract with the Cardinals this spring. Negotiations came to an end on Wednesday morning, more than an hour prior to the slugger’s self-imposed 11 a.m. CT Wednesday deadline. Thus, he will break off all contract talks until after the season ends. 
A Major League source told MLB.com on condition of anonymity that negotiations had ceased. The club has not formally confirmed the news.
Pujols had reportedly sought a 10-year deal, with some outlets reporting that he wanted $300 million over that span. SI.com reported on Tuesday night that the Cardinals had offered an eight-year contract worth under $30 million per year but likely more than $25 million per year, while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the club was “weighing” a guaranteed eighth year as of Wednesday morning.
Pujols was expected to be in the Jupiter area on Wednesday, but according to a club official, he does not intend to report to camp until Thursday. The formal report day for Cardinals infielders and outfielders isn’t until Friday, with full-squad workouts beginning Saturday.
St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak and the team’s principal owner, Bill DeWitt Jr., plan to address reporters on Wednesday afternoon. It’s unclear when, or even whether, Pujols or his agent, Dan Lozano, intends to speak about the matter. An enormous media throng has descended upon the Cardinals complex to cover the developments.
Though no deal was reached, at least two more stages of this process remain. Even if Pujols refuses to entertain any discussion until the Cardinals’ season is over, the Cardinals would still have one more exclusive opening. Clubs maintain exclusive negotiating rights with their own free agents until five days after the World Series ends. 
After that, Pujols would go to free agency if he were still unsigned, at which time the club could still find itself the highest bidder. That was the situation last winter, when Matt Holliday re-upped after hitting the open market.
Pujols will receive $16 million in 2011, the final season of a deal that will end up paying him $111 million over eight years.
-M.

Monday camp tidbits: Pujols, Edmonds, Valdes

It must really be Spring Training, as tidbits have returned. I’ll hopefully be doing these all spring — a quick morning look at both the stories I’ll be working on as the day goes on as well as those nuggets that don’t quite make it into a story.

* I’ve already put this up elsewhere, but in case you’ve missed it, John Mozeliak announced this morning that Wednesday at noon is the zero hour for getting a Pujols deal done. A short story on that is available at this link, and I’ll have more on it later today.
* Jim Edmonds’ situation seems dicier every day. Mozeliak said that Edmonds will speak with the medical staff today, but TLR said that it’s his understanding that Edmonds isn’t even “walking around briskly” as of a couple of days ago. Still, it sounds like club and player are both open to some situation where Edmonds opens the year in extended Spring Training, or something like that.
* Raul Valdes is the only late arrival, delayed due to visa issues. Mozeliak didn’t sound too concerned about it.
* Among today’s non-pitching arrivals were Jon Jay, Allen Craig, Daniel Descalso and Ryan Theriot.
* Thirteen pitchers were on the schedule to throw bullpens today: Jaime Garcia, Jake Westbrook, Adam Wainwright, Ryan Franklin, Kyle McClellan, Ian Snell, Fernando Salas, Brian Tallet, P.J. Walters, Bryan Augenstein, Brandon Dickson, Adam Ottavino and Valdes. Obviously Valdes didn’t throw…
And now the playlist is courtesy of the iTunes “genius” function”
The Black Keys, “Stack Shot Billy”
The White Stripes, “Catch Hell Blues”
Cold War Kids, “Mexican Dogs”
Modest Mouse, “Heart Cooks Brain”
Sleater-Kinney, “Turn It On”
-M.

T-minus 49 hours

There’s now, officially, an announced deadline in the Albert Pujols negotiations.

Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said Monday that talks between the team and agent Danny Lozano will come to an end on Wednesday, Feb. 16, at 11 a.m. CT. The deadline has been pushed back from Tuesday, partly out of respect for Stan Musial. “Stan the Man” will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on Tuesday.
“One of the things we wanted to make sure is, tomorrow’s a very big day for Stan Musial,” Mozeliak said on Monday morning. “And it wouldn’t make any sense to have a large distraction for that special day, given the amount of respect we have for that man. So it only makes sense to make sure we weren’t trying to have a lot of things going on, given what’s happening tomorrow in Washington.”
-M.

Holliday: I would defer some money for Pujols

Matt Holliday said Friday morning on ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” that he would be willing to defer some money from his current contract to help the Cardinals pay Albert Pujols. However, Holliday made it clear that the club has not approached him about such a possibility.

“I deferred $2 million a year for the whole contract,” Holliday told Doug Gottlieb on the show, “and I would be willing, if they came to me and said, ‘Hey, this is what it’s going to take to get Albert done, would you do it again or do more?’ Scott [Boras, Holliday's agent] probably wouldn’t like me to stay that, but if that’s what it took, I would be willing to do that.”
Two things need to be noted here, however.
First, Holliday explained that no such suggestion has been broached by the club. He told me this morning that the comment was “very hypothetical.”
Second, Holliday’s deal runs through 2016, which would be the fifth year of a new deal for Pujols. It’s very difficult to envision a deal being made or broken based on the relatively small amount that Holliday might defer, especially in the first five years of a deal. It’s a nice gesture, but it’s hard to imagine it having any real impact on the negotiations, even if it were actually to happen.
-M.

Tuesday tidbits from Disneyburg

Hello, all. Welcome from the Winter Meetings. I’ve been writing at Cardinals.com, blogging over at the MLB.com Hot Stove Blog and of course tweeting at @MatthewHLeach for a couple of days now. But now it’s time for an OYNAG entry, so here goes. Just some odds and ends from today at the Meetings.

* I touched on this in my main story, which will be going up at Cardinals.com before too long, but John Mozeliak said tonight that he hopes to have the club’s two remaining roster issues resolved before the club leaves on Thursday. He would like to have signed a backup catcher, and would like to have either traded Brendan Ryan or decided not to trade Ryan.
* Mozeliak said that he did not meet with Dan Lozano, Albert Pujols’ agent, on Tuesday.
* The Cardinals’ payroll currently stands at right around $100 million, and that’s before getting deals done with Kyle McClellan or Brendan Ryan, who are both arbitration-eligible, or any of the younger, pre-arbitration players.
Mozeliak has said consistently that the Cards have the money to add a Major League backup catcher, but said Tuesday that beyond that, they’re pretty much up against a wall as far as the payroll. It’s not IMPOSSIBLE that they could spend on another big leaguer, if exactly the right situation presented itself. But it’s highly unlikely.
* There are reports that Dennys Reyes will sign with the Phillies, but it’s not done yet according to my colleague Todd Zolecki. Reyes was out of the Cards’ picture anyway, but I figured I’d pass it along. Terrific guy, and on a personal level, I wish him well wherever he ends up.
Today’s playlist:
The National, “Anyone’s Ghost”
Cold War Kids, “Audience”
Interpol, “Safe Without”
Kanye West, “Runaway”
New Order, “Ceremony”
(Yeah, gloomy stuff, dunno why. Just because)
-M.
« older posts | back to blog home | newer posts »
Theme: MLB “pro” | Get a free blog at WordPress.com
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 18,861 other followers