Albert Pujols: Why St. Louis Cardinals Slugger Can Still Hit .315 This Season

Albert Pujols is a special player—perhaps the best active player and possibly one of the five best of all time.

Although he didn't look the part in April, the St. Louis slugger is proving he still can take the Cardinals upon his broad shoulders and carry them to the playoffs.

The 2011 season is the final one on his current contract, and several teams will soon be making plans to clear payroll space for what may be a record deal for the 11th-year veteran.

Did the pressure of this, his walk year, get to Pujols when he struggled out of the gate by hitting .245 in April? Whatever the reason, the career .331 hitter is in a league all his own when it comes to the first 10 seasons of his career.

Despite the April frustrations, he can still put up MVP numbers by the end of the season. Many would be surprised if he didn't wind up with a .300 batting average when the season winds down in October.

His pedestrian performance in the opening month was indeed an anomaly, as the 31-year-old has been a model of consistency since he burst onto the scene with one of the greatest rookie seasons in recent memory back in 2001.

In 10 seasons, he has hit .300 with 30 homers and 100 RBI every year. He's the only player in major-league history to have 30 bombs in each of his first 10 seasons—Oakland's Mark McGwire is next, having done the trick in his first four seasons.

He's also finished first or second in the National League MVP voting seven times. His lowest batting average in a season is .312—the figure he posted last year.

But what would he have to do to reach that figure in 2011? Well, figuring that he has averaged 573.3 at-bats per season (and he's currently at 262), he'd need 181 hits to record a final batting average of .315.

From here, he'd have to hit .350 the rest of the way to reach that mark.

Is that possible, even for a man who has marveled in such a short amount of time?

Take this into account. In 2007, Pujols hit .250 in April. He finished with a .327 batting average, including a remarkable .386 in September. On June 15th, his average stood at .303 after a sizzling six-week stretch in which he hit .338 with 10 homers and 29 RBI.

After the All-Star break that year, he batted .349.

So he has already shown that he's capable of reaching not only .300, but higher. Currently at .275, from this point forward, he'd have to bat roughly .321 to attain the .300 mark by year's end.

If there's one thing Cardinal fans have come to appreciate about Albert, it's that no one can ever discount his ability, drive or passion for the game.