Sep 9th 2008 12:31PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)
A quick glance at Albert Pujols’ stats makes it easy to forget he’s been playing hurt all year. His .369/.466/.649 is a big improvement on his “down” year last year and it’s given him a career high OPS+ of 191 to date. The fact that he’s got an tear in his ulnar collateral ligament seems like an afterthought with numbers like that. Still, it’s there and Pujols is considering off-season surgery to fix the problem.
“I’m thinking about it; I’m thinking really hard,” the first baseman told the local station. “There’s just a lot of things next year going on, the All-Star Game (in St. Louis), the (World Baseball) Classic, you know. But I think in the long run the sooner that I get it done the better it’s going to be for me because I’m going to heal quicker than if I wait two or three more years. But it needs to be done.”
The Post-Dispatch is careful not to say this, but reconstructive surgery on a torn ulnar collateral ligament is Tommy John surgery. Since he’s a first baseman, he likely wouldn’t miss the full year that the surgery costs pitchers, but he’d almost certainly miss some significant time at the beginning of next season if he has the procedure. Indications in the article are that there’s going to be a bit of a fight over this. The team doesn’t think surgery’s necessary but Pujols seems to be pretty serious about it. Teams fighting stars … that never goes well.