The World's Worst Sports Blog

Pujols is happy to be in the AL West. That’s where the Rangers are. August 2, 2012

Albert Pujols hit two home runs in the Angels’ 11-10 extra-innings loss to the Rangers yesterday night. It was his first multi-homer game since, well, the Angels 6-2 win over the Rangers the previous night. Albert’s last multi-homer game was an October 22 win over… yep, the Rangers.

Although he’s dragging a bit in comparison to previous years (currently hitting .049 home runs per plate appearance, as opposed to last year’s .057 and 2010’s .06), there’s an argument to be made that he’s the victim of bad luck. For example, the league’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .292, and Pujols’ is a full .016 below that at .276. In his 401 at-bats, that’s about 6 hits that average defense wouldn’t have fielded. Mike Trout, on the other hand, is up at a BABIP of .400. That’s about 36 hits on his 333 at-bats that are above his expectation if he had the league’s average BABIP. This is emphatically not to say that Trout’s season is a fluke, or that Pujols’ is, but sometimes the human element of the game has odd results.