Albert Pujols: Teammates Must Help Take Pressure off LA Angels Struggling Star

The Los Angeles Angels spent $315 million this offseason on two prime free agents to compete with the Texas Rangers in the American League West. Albert Pujols, who accounts for $240 of that total, has not been the player the team was hoping up to this point, but he is not solely to blame for the team's 15-20 start to the season. 

When the Angels put this team together, they assumed that plugging one hole in the lineup was going to be enough to cure all that ailed them. To be fair, Pujols has not done anything on his own to fix the offense—he is hitting .196/.234/.275 with one home run and 12 RBI—but if he was the only problem this team had, they would be fine. 

Instead, Pujols' problems get compounded because there are only three players on the team that are hitting right now. Mike Trout (.306/.368/.531), Mark Trumbo (.321/.394/.619) and Kendrys Morales (.313/.343/.448) have had to carry the offense up to this point. 

In Trout's case, he has only been up for two weeks, so that is one month that this team went with two productive offensive players. I don't care what team you are, or how good you think your pitching staff might be, no one is going to win with that kind of production from the lineup. 

Their 130 runs scored ranks head of only Minnesota (116) and Oakland (127) in the American League. The Angels' problems run much deeper than Pujols at this point. They rank 19th in slugging percentage and 27th in on-base percentage. 

Even if Pujols magically started hitting like the player of old, it is not going to make that much of a difference because no one around him is getting on base.

So while we all sit and wonder what is wrong with Pujols, the question should be: What is wrong with the Angels? This team was not put together well at all. Going back to the acquisition of Vernon Wells, they have done nothing to build a capable major league offense.

They tried to throw a lot of money at the problem--Pujols is eventually going to hit, he is too good not to--but they didn't do anything to build around him.  

Trout is going to be a great player, but he is a 20-year-old rookie who is going to have growing pains this year. 

If the Angels really want to fix their problems, they need to stop focusing completely on Pujols and start looking at everyone in that lineup. Pujols is always going to get the questions because of who he is, but it's up to everyone else to help take some of the pressure off him. 

Through the first five weeks of the season, no one on the Angels has stepped up his game to do that. 

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