“He understood where we stood on the whole situation, and things did not end bad,” added Minasian, the team’s first-year general manager. Days earlier, Maddon had told Pujols he would be in the Wednesday lineup “because I try to map things out as much as I can, and I had it mapped out for the week,” Maddon said. In 24 games with the Angels this season, he batted .198 with a .622 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and five home runs. In recent days, several prominent former players including Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre criticized the Angels for the sudden manner of Pujols’ release. Advertisement“If there is a baseball player that deserves a ton of respect, it is Albert Pujols,” Beltre told reporter Héctor Gómez on Friday.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 09, 2021 20:48 UTC