Why do teams still pitch to Pujols?

[dalgreen]

Okay, I'm watching the Royals/Cards game and the Cards have Eckstein at third with one-out and Pujols is up, with Encarnacion on deck. Instead of pitching around Pujols they pitch to him and he singles home Eckstein. There is absolutely no one in that lineup who would concern me other than Pujols. So why do teams still pitch to him? Last year, same thing. He was really there only stick in the lineup and teams pitched to him. I don't get it. Help me understand.

[Roast]

Managers like dusty baker are considered "great" around the league.

 

Question = answered.

 

Teams r dum.

[soccer10k]

The same reason teams still pitched to Bonds a couple years ago: stupidity.

[tkenm356]

Because dog-gone-it, they KNOW they can strike out the best hitter in the game!

[cubsfan5150]

I've continually wondered that myself. If Rolen is behind him, then I could understand pitching to him sometimes, but there is no reason that he should ever have anymore at bats that Bonds as long as they don't have someone in the line-up that can give him some legitimate protection. I'd walk him every opportunity unless Z was pitching against him. The only thing that I wouldn't do is walk him if nobody was on or if I was moving up more runners by walking him. I've never understood why teams do that.

[CardsFanInChiTown]

On average walking him will increase the amount of runs the Cardinals will score.

[Marco4]

That's how I've always understoood it; I read an article breaking it all down somewhere (probably THT, its the stat site I read most often)

[tkenm356]

Well the difference between Bonds being walked all the time and Pujols being walked all the time is that if you went ahead and pitched to Bonds, he could probably smack out 70HR again (well maybe not now, but in recent years past), and people continually throw to Pujols and he hasn't yet reached 50. Plus it's not like people don't walk him, he draws lots of walks, I'm sure a lot of them are unintentional intentional walks, despite the fact that he's been in the Top 5 in IBB in the past few years. Plus he was sucking really bad early on this year, so I probably would've thrown to him as well. When he starts hitting 15-20 dingers a month like he was doing last year I'm sure they'll start IBB'ing him more often, wouldn't be surprised if they start doing that more often sooner than later

[Pushfrog98]

Well the difference between Bonds being walked all the time and Pujols being walked all the time is that if you went ahead and pitched to Bonds, he could probably smack out 70HR again (well maybe not now, but in recent years past), and people continually throw to Pujols and he hasn't yet reached 50. Plus it's not like people don't walk him, he draws lots of walks, I'm sure a lot of them are unintentional intentional walks, despite the fact that he's been in the Top 5 in IBB in the past few years. Plus he was sucking really bad early on this year, so I probably would've thrown to him as well. When he starts hitting 15-20 dingers a month like he was doing last year I'm sure they'll start IBB'ing him more often, wouldn't be surprised if they start doing that more often sooner than later

But Pujols doesn't always beat you by hitting homeruns... he beats you by just putting the ball into play.