Losing the battle, winning the war

We all love a good story, especially one where the giant gets taken down by the underdog. I can remember very clearly the 1980 Olympics when team USA and a bunch of amateurs took on the mighty Soviet Red Army hockey team for the gold. As Mike Euruzione scored a goal to put the US in the lead late in the game, there was hope that something amazing could take place. In the last few seconds, I can still here the voice of Al Michaels as he declared "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!!!"

Baseball has had it's times of David taking out Goliath. If we remember last year in the playoffs the upstart Rays knock off the powerful Red Sox in seven games. It happens, thats why I love sports so much. On any given night anything can happen. In baseball, every at bat counts and a game can switch quickly on one misplay or one bad pitch.

I was looking forward to a great game last night, one that featured a 300 game winner in Randy Johnson and in my opinion the future all time home run hitter in Albert Pujols. The game did not disappoint at all. Johnson lost the battles against Pujols, but Johnson got the win.

The Big Unit only pitched 5 1/3 innings giving up just 4 hits and 3 runs to pick up win #303. Two of the hits were homeruns hit by Albert. All three runs he gave up came off the HR's by Albert. Other than his AB's with Pujols he pitched well enough to get the W. I believe there are many games pitchers win by being good enough not necessarily because they were on. Johnson is now just two wins away from moving up the ladder and catching Tom Glavine.

Pujols is now at 349 HR's. He will be halfway to 700 on his next homerun and he is 29 years old. He has to be the most feared hitter in all of baseball. To watch him hit is a treat. He hits for power and he hits for average. He has over 1600 hits, over 1000 RBI, has a career batting average of .334, and amazingly has only struck out 538 times in 4843 at bats. That means he strikes out 1 time in every 9 at bats.

Let me compare those numbers with a couple of other active sluggers, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi and Ryan Howard. Sheffield has struck out 1156 times in 9122 AB's that is a ratio of 1 to 7.8 which is still good. Giambi has K'd 1368 times in 6570 a ratio of 1 in 4.8, and Howard has taken a seat via the strikeout 784 times in 2365 AB's which is a ratio of 1 in every 3 plate appearances.

All that being said, my conclusion is this: Albert Pujols is the best active hitter in the bigs. Given time and health he will be considered among the best of all time and maybe the best. We have an opportunity to see greatness, along the lines of Gretzky, Jordan, Marino and Tiger. What do you think?