Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: The Juice: Albert Pujols hits 1st home run in, like, forever

Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports Latest Big League Stew - MLB from Yahoo! Sports The Juice: Albert Pujols hits 1st home run in, like, forever 24 May 2011, 11:37 am Nine innings, nine items to get you going. Ladies and gentleman of the Stew, take a sip of morning Juice. 1. Took him long enough: After 26 games and 119 plate appearances without going into a home run trot — the longest drought of his career — St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols went deep against the Padres in a 3-1 victory Monday night. Eyewitnesses claim Pujols hit two other balls harder, but they were merely long outs at PETCO. Watch Albert get phat Albert's still not right; He's batting .268/.340/.421 with eight homers, but manager Tony La Russa says opponents are pitching Pujols like he's batting .350, so look for him to get hot, I guess. Scott Miller at CBS Sports put together an amusing list of occurrences since Pujols previously went yard April 23. Most notable: The Cardinals went 16-10 and Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista hit 12 homers. TWELVE-UH. 2. Well, they didn't waste any time: After long absences due to injury, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz returned and each hit a home run to back Alexi Ogando in a 4-0 Texas Rangers victory. Hamilton hadn't seen the field in six weeks, but he delivered his first homer against John Danks. Cruz missed three weeks. Ogando pitched a five-hitter and lowered his ERA to 1.81 in nine starts. He's one of eight major leaguers with an ERA at 2.00 or lower. Juice that ball up, eh? 3. Mutiny!: The Los Angeles Angels scored three in the eighth to key a 4-1 victory against the A's. But get a load of what Oakland's Brian Fuentes said about his manager after he fell to 1-7. Please, do not invite him and manager Bob Geren to the same baseball team. 4. Keep on truckin': The Cleveland Indians might not ever lose again. Asdrubal Cabrera lined a go-ahead, two-run double in the eighth, letting the Boston Red Sox taste the Tribe's wrath by a 3-2 score. 5. Just as everyone predicted: Despite getting two home runs from Jim Thome and his blue ox, the Minnesota Twins are 15 1/2 games out of first place in the AL Central after falling to the Seattle Mariners 8-7 in 10 innings. 6. Show us your hits!: He took the collar in his return from knee hell going 0 for 5, but Chase Utley must have supernaturally sparked the Philadelphia Phillies to a big night offensively in a 10-3 victory against the Cincinnati Reds. Three guys — Placido Polanco, Jimmy Rollins and Raul Ibañez — each hit a homer and Cole Hamels allowed three runs over six. Bronson Arroyo had a bad night. 7. How do you walk like an Angel?: Angel Sanchez worked an 11-pitch walk in the ninth, which Hunter Pence said keyed the Houston Astros big comeback against the Dodgers. Pence later came through with a game-ending, two-out single against Kenley Jansen for a 4-3 victory at the Juice Box. 8. But did he wear sunglasses?: Corey Hart came in with no home runs in 21 games. So he took corrective steps and had the night of his life: Three home runs and seven RBIs (both tying club records) in the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3 victory against the Washington Nationals. The middle homer was the 100th of his career. 9. Walk at your own risk: The New York Yankees put a lot of effort into pitching around Jose Bautista in a disastrous sixth inning. They ended up putting too many people on base and the Toronto Blue Jays made them pay with a five-spot to key a 7-3 victory against Bartolo Colon. Earlier, Bautista had hit his 19th homer. Saps! Follow Dave on Twitter — @AnswerDave — and engage the Stew on Facebook You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed.