Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols did not start Tuesday after receiving a shot late Monday night to address increased pain in his left elbow, pain that has persisted for the past couple of weeks and may not vanish entirely until the offseason.
Pujols said unless the elbow has a bad reaction to the cortisone shot he planned to be available for tonight's series finale against the Chicago Cubs.
"If I'm going to play 19 of the (final) 20 games, I have to take a day off somehow," Pujols said. "Either today, tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday — somehow I was going to take a day off and (get the shot). Why wait until later when you can do something now? We already waited to see if it would get better.
"It did some, but not all the way."
Pujols traced the injury in his left elbow to a dive in Pittsburgh and a play in Washington a couple of weeks ago. Since those instances, tendinitis has invaded the joint and caused it to swell or stiffen at times. Pujols had an MRI scan, and it found no structural damage, he said. The first baseman insisted that the injury wouldn't require any treatment more significant than rest this offseason.
He had been taking anti-inflammatory medicine until alerting the team physician after Monday's loss that the pain had become intolerable.
"The pain was more intense than it has been," manager Tony La Russa said. "We didn't make it a topic for discussion (whether Pujols would play). He needs a break."
Tuesday was the third start of the season that Pujols missed. He had appeared in all but one game before Tuesday. Felipe Lopez started at first, where he had two innings in his career, and Colby Rasmus assumed the No. 3 spot in the order. Pujols did take batting practice early Tuesday, but stiffness in the elbow — an initial side effect of the shot — encouraged the team to sit him.
Pujols said the tendinitis near the elbow has been more ornery and difficult to play through than last year's bone spurs in his right elbow, where he had surgery in October to remove the chunks and where he still has a torn ligament. He described how he considered flying back to St. Louis during the previous trip to receive treatment. Pujols has hit .227 since the dive in Pittsburgh, though he clubbed four homers with a .321 average on the most recent trip.
"I don't want to put any excuses on the drop in my batting and all that," Pujols said. "That's not me. That's part of the game. But it was just weird that after that injury I kind of started getting under the ball a little bit. ... The last couple weeks, there's more damage that I could have done. There's some balls that I could have drove or hit out of the park if I had just got on top better."
CARDS' SCHEDULE RELEASED
The Cardinals will open next season at home against the San Diego Padres on March 31, a Thursday. Around baseball, opening day has been pushed up at least three days to avoid having the postseason leak into November. The Cardinals' 2011 schedule includes the club's first regular-season visit to Baltimore's Camden Yards and nine home weekend games against the division rival Cubs. The Cardinals will also host Kansas City and Toronto in interleague play. The Cincinnati Reds will visit Busch Stadium for the Fourth of July, and the Cardinals have all three major summer holidays at home.
DOG PATROL AT BUSCH
The Army's 94th/67th Engineer Detachment's specialized search dogs roamed Busch Stadium all day Thursday as the club allowed the bomb-sniffing team to run its training exercises. Sixteen dogs and their keepers, all stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, visited the stadium. Each dog is trained to recognize 11 scents, mostly for explosive devices. About half of the team will be deployed to Afghanistan in the next few months, an official said, and several of the dogs had already been overseas for active duty.
La Russa delayed the Cubs' batting practice briefly as he hit fungoes to some of the dogs in right field. Lt. Sean Flachs, a St. Louis-area native, organized the training at what he called the "biggest venue" the dogs had ever patrolled.
EXTRA BASES
Reliever Trever Miller (strained flexor) is expected to be available if needed tonight after missing a week to mend an elbow injury. ... The Cardinals re-upped with Class A affiliate Quad Cities for a two-year extension to the teams' player development contract. The new deal runs through 2012. The Cardinals have been with the Midwest League club in Davenport, Iowa, since 2005. ... Class AA reliever Ramon Delgado will be the Cardinals' final addition to the Arizona Fall League. Delgado, a righty, was 2-2 with a 1.34 ERA in 51 appearances, 13 of which came at Class AA Springfield.
