Insider: Pujols struggles to adjust during 'really tough year'

"Jim and Scott are still respected," La Russa says. "(Opposing pitchers) know they can break out of it at any time."

So the Cardinals wait. And Pujols waits. Maybe tomorrow will be the day. Maybe skies will clear then.

"I'm going through a turn now that's like the weather," Pujols says. "It's turned to dark clouds. At the end there will be light."

He surely can't be serious about being "glad" to be going through any part of this, can he?

"I didn't want this to happen," Pujols says. "But you can ask anybody, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, any of the greatest hitters who have struggled: Have they gotten worse after they struggled? No, they got better."

The clear plan -- or maybe it's just the thought that keeps sanity from fleeing right now -- is for the same thing to happen to him. Most noticeable right now is, trapped in a place he's never been, his old sullenness has yielded to an easygoing demeanor.

"When I pray, I thank God for another day to see my family and teammates, and for being able to play the game I love," Pujols says. "Sometimes you get caught up in yourself."

So the only player in major league history to slam 30 or more homers in each of his first six seasons continues to flail.

The man who finished second last season in NL MVP voting -- his fifth consecutive season in the top three -- endures one of those deep droughts that so often strikes baseball's common folk, but not him, and tells himself over and over to keep it simple.

See the ball, hit the ball.

"Is that difficult to do?" Pujols says, posing the question himself. "It is, it is. Sometimes we make things more complicated than they really are.

"Like with your wife, sometimes you argue so much over little things, like you leave a shirt out and need to put it back. We need to know that maybe that's the last time you spoke to your wife, and now you're gone, and there's nothing you can do about it."

No telling when these raw feelings will fade from this St. Louis clubhouse.

No telling when this unexpected detour will end for Pujols.

"I guarantee to you," he says, smiling. "It won't be like this all year long. I'll figure it out.

"I'm pretty close to being the old Albert Pujols, and when I figure it out, you're going to see it. And watch out."