Albert Pujols has battled foot problems for the entirety of his disappointing 2013 campaign with the Los Angeles Angels, having the worst year of his career and scaring the Angels organization and its fans that they have an Alex Rodriguez contract on their hands.
Pujols is intent on allaying those fears however, and isn't ruling out a return to the diamond this season. "It's still a long way until the season is done, so I don't want to say that I'm done for the season."
A return of the old Pujols is what the Angels really need, however. Since inking his $240 million deal, Pujols has turned in back-to-back disappointing seasons. Last year Pujols batted .285 with 30 home runs and 105 RBI; while fine numbers they are pedestrian for Pujols.
This year's been an unmitigated disaster by Pujols' standards. Before succumbing to his injury Pujols posted a .258 average with just 17 home runs and 64 RBI. He acknowledged that he probably should not have played this long with his injury bothering him as much as it has.
"Stuff like this, you've just got to rest it, and hopefully it gets better," Pujols said. "I know it's going to get better, because over the weekend I was feeling good. And pain-wise, to tell you the truth, from a scale of zero to 10, it's probably about 1. I was playing at 7 or 8 in the season, so it's really something that's just going to take some time, and I'm just going to see how it feels every day."
In the same breath, he said he'd be willing to play through more pain as long as it is tolerable. "Even if I feel 55 percent that I can come back and play, I'm going to be out there and playing, because I love this game and I grew up playing this game, and I'm going to do the best I can to help this organization win."
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