TOWER GROVE — Albert Pujols came one walk shy last summer of a first in his career, a 100-walk season. This season, he’ll get there by August.

Pujols has 13 walks in 54 plate appearances so far — so early — this month. Take his average season of 677 plate appearances and at his current rate he’ll walk 163 times this year. That would break by one base on balls the franchise record, set in 1998 by Mark McGwire. And, it would be the fifth highest total in baseball history, or the second-most ever by a player not named Barry Bonds.

The other chap to walk that many times? Babe Ruth.

He’s going to easily eclipse 100 this season, if he stays healthy, and whether he takes a run at 150 walks this season will depend less on him and more on those around him. The Cardinals showed this past weekend in San Francisco that Protecting Pujols is as much the responsibility of the hitters ahead of him as the hitters behind him. If Skip Schumaker, et. al., get on base ahead of Pujols there are less bases to put Pujols.

Easy.

But the vacancy at cleanup for the Cardinals continues to sabotage the team’s offensive production, especially when teams can traipse around Pujols and dare the hitters behind him to produce. Here is the erosion of production from the cleanup spot for the Cardinals over the past five seasons (MLB rank):

SEASON … BA (rk) … OBP (rk) … SLG (rk) … OPS (rk)

2004 … .286 (10) … .402 (2) … .543 (5) … .945 (5)

2005 … .274 (17) … .376 (6) … .494 (10) … .870 (9)

2006 … .308 (7) … .389 (8) … .521 (13) … .910 (9)

2007 … .246 (30) … .320 (30) … .386 (30) … .706 (30)

2008 … .240 (20) … .316 (24) … .420 (22) … .736 (22)

As much as we have written about the black hole that was the four hole for the Cardinals last season, it’s still glaring to look at those numbers — last in baseball straight across the columns. That .386 slugging percentage is closer to the league averge for on-base percentage (.365) than it is the league average for slugging percentage (.492). This kind of flabby production from what has to be a muscle in the middle of the order muzzled the Cardinals offense and its best bat.

Sure there are many more reasons for it than just the above, but it not a coincidence that the Cardinals’ No. 4 hitter has its highest average and second-best slugging percentage the same season Pujols sets career highs in homers and RBIs.

And the 30th-ranked cleanup hitters followed Pujols’ season of career-lows.

That brings us to the latest in a ongoing pre/early-season series of Decision 2008. So many of the openings on the Cardinals roster have been filled – fourth and fifth starters (check); leadoff hitter (check) — but the cleanup spot remains a rotating cast. And it’s possible the best candidate for the role has just five at-bats there.

But he did homer.

** THE BALLOT ** 

RICK ANKIEL, CF: The odds-on candidate to hit cleanup against righthanded pitchers, like tonight’s starter Dave Bush. Ankiel has the power to keep opponents honest, though the recent spike in strikeouts is something to wary of. He showed improved discipline at the plate this spring, and has to carry that over to the regular season or else 250 combined strikeouts in the No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the order are going to kill a lot of rallies.

TROY GLAUS, 3B: Has so far been the cleanup hitter against lefthanded pitchers, despite a preponderance of evidence that he has not been productive there in his career. Glaus has yet to hit a home run this season, is batting .222 overall and only Toronto’s Vernon Wells has more at-bats with runners in scoring position than Glaus’ 20. Glaus shrugs it off as just one of those things, like Braden Looper’s day-night splits from last summer, but what he’s done in his career at cleanup and No. 5:

• No. 4 — 399 games … 1,458 AB … .237/.343/.468
• No. 5 — 334 games … 1,180 AB … .258/.364/.497

CHRIS DUNCAN, LF: A surging slugger who could hit his way into this role. Manager Tony La Russa has spoken many times over the past couple seasons about how he prefers to have Duncan in the two spot. There’s plenty of reason for that, though chief among them is his ability to get on base ahead of Pujols. Duncan has walked six times and struck out six times this season. He has a .359 career OBP, a .357 OBP. He has a .885 career OPS, and it is an .897 OPS in the No. 2 spot.

ALBERT PUJOLS, 1B: Pujols obviously cannot protect himself, so by shifting him to cleanup it may only pass the buck to the five hitter, and it may foil La Russa’s “Crazy 8″ idea. But if La Russa ever gave colleague Joe Strauss the lineup card to fill out, Pujols would be batting cleanup. He’s been there before:

237 games … 883 AB … .323 BA … .406 OBP … .582 SLG

The benefit would be having three hitters ahead of him with the chance to get on base, four if the double-leadoff is in play. The drawback would be — are there three hitters to fill those spots? Who would bat third? Ankiel? Is it worth giving up Pujols’ at-bat in the first inning or, most importantly, the 13 to 17 fewer plate appearances he could get over the course of the season.

RYAN LUDWICK, OF: Comes into tonight’s game with a home run in the past three and an .800 slugging percentage this season. His ability to hit righthanders and his struggles against lefties continue to be a riddle. But beyond that and the two three-strikeout games this past week, Ludwick has some traits of a cleanup hitter. He hits for power. He hits for a good enough average. His 2007 .839 OPS with runners in scoring position is better than his 2007 bases-empty number (.813) and runners on (.820). He went 2-for-5 in his turn at cleanup Sunday. And it’s not the first time he’s been there. Back in 2007, Ludwick hit cleanup in Triple-A to this tune:

106 AB … 39 H … 18 XB … 18 K … .368/.402/.726

Any write-in candidates? Any out-of-market options?

First, check out the link below. Rock and then vote.

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If you haven’t seen it yet, Scott Spiezio’s band Sandfrog has a music video over at YouTube linking its way across the Internet. You can also check out Jeff Gordon’s Tipsheet to play the video.

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