Cardinals fans, take a deep breath — your team’s season isn’t over. It just seems like it.
By now, we’ve all seen the cringeworthy video of Pete Kozma’s throw pulling Albert Pujols’ wrist into the path of a speeding Wilson Betemit. St. Louisans – and likely Kozma himself – will have nightmares about Pujols immediately crumpling into a painful heap near the first base coaches’ box, writhing in pain as a once promising season seemingly slipped away from the Cardinals.
He’s expected to potentially be out even longer than the 4-6 weeks, something that has more than a few Midwesterners pushing the panic button because, well, that’s what passionate baseball fans do when their team loses a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.
So what does this mean for the Cardinals in actuality?
It means that while they’re losing one of their team leaders for an extended period of time, they are far from DOA. Like Stella, Lance Berkman has gotten his groove back to the tune of a torrid .303/17/51 season, putting up the kinds of numbers he used to back in his glory days with the Astros. He’ll be getting most of the starts at first until No. 5 comes back.
More importantly though, it means the team will get an up close-and-personal look at promising first base prospect Mark Hamilton. Hamilton has shown signs of power in the minors, hitting 26 home runs in 143 games at Triple-A. The 26-year-old should be able to spell Berkman regularly, provided he can iron out his early struggles against big league pitching.
That’s not to say Pujols is going to be easy to replace. Teams aren’t near as afraid to pitch to Berkman as they are to Big Albert. Because of that the rest of the middle of the order is going to have to step up in order to fill the offensive hole.
The good news for the Cardinals? Pujols’ injury won’t make them switch divisions. Right now, the team finds themselves 1/2 game behind the Brewers for the lead in the NL Central, a division nobody seemingly ever wants to win. A three horse race between the Brewers, Cards and Reds is going to make for an interesting summer for sure, with questions about both Milwaukee and Cincinnati’s bullpens abound.
The bigger question is what kind of long term impact is this going to have on Pujols’ career. The slugger is heading into free agency after this season, and teams may be reluctant to dole out ARod style money to a 31-year-old slugger coming off such a serious injury. If he’s going to reach out and grab that brass ring, Pujols is going to have to finish this season even stronger than he started it in order to get the money that he deserves on the open market.
