It looked to me like Pujols was going pretty hard to his left to pick that short hop – picking it would certainly have prevented the error, but I don’t think you can blame Pujols for going well beyond what the book would define as “ordinary effort.” If the throw had been on target and Pujols had muffed it, I’d agree with you, but not when the throw short hops in well to the left of the target. YMMV.
Yeah, i just watched it again, and Albert had plenty of time to get himself in the right position to catch the ball. He was a little nonchalant about it until the last second, when he realized that it was tailing away from him.
The throw was a little off target, but Pujols should have adjusted in time. And it didn’t short-hop him; it hit his glove on the full.
Apparently not. Everyone else saw Kinsler hold up after rounding third.
If that’s the case (I’ll have to check it out again when I get home) and Pujols lolly-gagged over there and the ball hit him in the glove, then I stand corrected. Then it was Pujols who cost them the game.
Craig has had some great timely hitting in the World Series.
Wow, this is been a bad inning for Texas. First, Kinsler messes up the throw from second, then the umpire fucks up the call at first, and then Napoli fucks up the throw to the plate.
I feel comfortable saying that Pujols can hit the ball real hard.
Twice.
I fear the Pujols home run (oops, there goes another one) took the Rangers out of this game.
Not as much of a no-doubter as the first, but still, good Lord.
People tend to think of Pujols more as a complete hitter, not a pure distance slugger like McGwire, but Jesus, the man can hit the ball far.
And even those shots did not equal that incredible home run he hit in Houston in 2005, the one that had flight attendants and a layover in Frankfurt.
Just from what I’ve seen in this series, he doesn’t exactly suck as a first baseman, either.
Almost as awesome as that first home run was the near dead silence that fell over the stadium after Pujols hit it.
It’s interesting that a fan interference call requires the fan to touch the ball (or the fielder’s glove, maybe?), according to the broadcast.
I don’t know that I’d argue that throwing a ball into the field behind the play should be fan interference, but I’d think there would be other ways for a fan to interfere beyond directly touching the ball.
Holy crap.
Are you fucking kidding me? I humbly bow before my baseball overlord.
Weird how that was historic and exciting and felt totally predictable at the same time.
The sports bar we’re at in STL is going crazy right now. Just had to report to the dope that this city should just give Pujols the Arch if he wants it.
Is Pujols going to get anything to hit for the rest of this series? He probably shouldn’t.
Just some random stat stuff: Pujols ties the WS records for hits in a game (5, with Paul Molitor) and RBI in a game (6, with Matsui and Bobby Richardson) in addition to the home runs record, and he breaks the record for total bases in a game with 14 (Jackson and Ruth had 12, with Ruth doing it twice). In Pujols’ first 11 career World Series games - the first two of this series plus the '04 and '06 series - he was 8/37 (.216) with one home run and two RBI. In this game he went five-for-six, which takes his career WS average all the way up to .310. Those 14 total bases equal his total from those other 11 games combined.