DownSwinging.com

We’re nearly at the All-Star Break, and are in fact more than halfway through the 2009 MLB season. There have been some incredible performances so far this year, most notably Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum. On the offensive side of things though, one man has been tearing up baseball the entire season, and that man is Albert Pujols. Now maybe Pujols isn’t getting quite as much press as he deserves because, really, he is expected to put up these sorts of numbers. But let’s be clear: the dude is on fire. If you’re not aware, let me run through Pujols’ line after 287 ABs:

.331 BA, 31 HRs, 82 RBIs, 1.184 OPS, 69 BBs, 35 Ks. Oh and 10 SBs too.

Those numbers have him ranked first in the NL in HRs, first in RBIs, and third in batting average. So can Albert Pujols win the Triple Crown. Well at the very least, he’s probably going to be closer than anyone’s come in a long time. Let’s take a look at his competition in each category.

Home Runs

If Pujols any category locked up, its this one. Pujols has 31 HRs, and tied for second with 24 is Adrian Gonzalez and Mark Reynolds. Ibanez and Dunn have 22. Each of those four guys (maybe not Ibanez) have a pretty good chance of keeping up their production for the rest of the year. That being said, none of them will catch Pujols. Say Pujols ends the season with 55, I can’t realistically see any of them coming close to that. So put this one in Albert’s bank.

RBIs

Pujols is five up on second-place Prince Fielder who has 77 RBIs. After that it drops off until you get to Ryan Howard at third with 63, followed closely by Mark Reynolds and Chase Utley. It’s going to be a two-horse race down the stretch probably, even though RBIs is the most flexible of the three stats in the sense that you can rack them up quickly…or not. Both the Cards and Brewers are going to be in the hunt down the stretch so the drive will be there. Fielder has an advantage however, because he has better hitters in Ryan Braun and J.J. Hardy in front of him, as opposed to Pujols’ having Colby Rasmus and Brendan Ryan. Basically, Pujols is probably going to have to keep his HRs up if he wants to beat out Fielder.

Batting Average

Obviously the biggest hurdle in the way of Pujols conquering the crown. Pujols (.331) trails Carlos Beltran (.336) and Hanley Ramirez (.346) in batting average, so he’s going to have to make up quite a bit of ground. I don’t know if Beltran will be able to keep up his average, particularly since he’s hurt right now. When he recovers, maintaining a .336 average is going to pretty tough. It’s Ramirez that will be more difficult for Pujols. Even though Hanley is injured right now too, he can hit, and he’s fast.

Odds

Albert is in a good position, and definitely is a legitimate contender. If you ignore the possibility of him getting injured, I give him a 20% shot at winning the Triple Crown.