Angels Await Those First Sparks From Pujols ANAHEIM, Calif. - The echoing crack and the pale blur heading for the left-field seats were what the crowd had been waiting for. In the instants after it became airborne, it was as if everyone at Angel Stadium was willing the ball over the wall, so that one of baseball's most expensive and celebrated home run hitters could end the month with an exclamation point, rather than a question mark. In the Angels" dugout, outfielder Torii Hunter said, the players were going crazy, too. Everyone was excited. All watching the flight of the ball. Everyone in the stadium, except one. At the end of his follow-through, Albert Pujols turned his back on the ball and the play. He knew where it was going. Foul. Near the foul pole, but foul. He had taken the ball a fraction early, he said, his hands marginally ahead of where they should have been at contact. "It wasn't my swing," Pujols said about the fifth-inning at-bat, which ended in a strikeout. It wasn't the swing I usually put when I hit the ball fair. The swing has been absent and the Los Angeles Angels bereft in the first month of the 2012 season. Pujols was 0-for-April in home runs, and the Angels, with their massive payroll - reportedly $151.4 million - foundering bullpen and nonexistent offense, arrived at May 1 with an 8-15 record, nine games behind the Texas Rangers, who lead the American League West. They did win this one, 4-3, over the Minnesota Twins on Monday night, although not without the usual late-inning swoon. The Twins scored three runs in the eighth inning, chasing starter C. J. Wilson and then reliever LaTroy Hawkins. Pujols, who entered the game batting .216, was 1 for 4. The hit was a first-inning double, badly misplayed by left fielder Josh Willingham. It could be said that Willingham played the hitter and not the hit, diving to his left in anticipation of the usual Pujols heater. But the point of contact was closer to the midpoint of the bat than the barrel, a changeup line drive. The ball fell well short of Willingham's lunge, bouncing past him as Pujols sprinted for second base. It had been an atypical at-bat for Pujols. Angels Manager Mike Scioscia noted before the game that there was a fine line between being selective of pitches and being passive, adding, "I think at some at-bats he's taken pitches he would like to have back." On Monday Pujols came out ready to take the contest to Nick Blackburn, the Twins" starter. Four swings produced three fouls, each ball faintly tipped, and dribbling away onto the grass, behind the batter's box. On his fifth swing, Pujols made something resembling contact. "I know I can hit a home run, and it's going to happen," said Pujols, who signed a 10-year contract for a reported $254 million with the Angels in December after ending 11 years in St. Louis by winning a World Series. The only thing I don't know is it's maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, a month from now, I don't know. He stood before his locker after the game, talking to a semicircle of reporters, his shaved head beading with perspiration. Someone handed him a towel. He rubbed it over his scalp, at ease and eloquent. "It was a tough month for everybody, I think," Pujols said of April. Torii is the only one who's been swinging the bat well, the last couple of games. It's really crazy to see the whole ball club going through this. It's like everybody's in this little funk. Hunter was 2 for 4 Monday with his third home run in four games. Success brings a thousand new friends, and a high-profile hitting slump at least as many new coaches. Pujols said he was careful not to listen too much. "The last thing you want to do is put in so many things back in your head," he said. He knows the adjustments he has to make. I've been doing it for 12 years. I know my hitting. Only God knows my swing better than me. Between their Sunday afternoon loss in Cleveland to the Indians and the first game of a three-game home series against the Twins, the Angels players held a team meeting, at which Pujols spoke up. They were too good to be this bad, he reminded his teammates. They will not think about the Rangers, or any of the other teams ahead of them. Pujols will not anticipate his first home run for his new team, whenever that may arrive. "Why should I think that will help me?" he said. I've been in this situation before; obviously, not as early as this. I remember "09 I hit a bunch of home runs. In 2006 I hit 49, I didn't hit a home run the last month of the season. It's just baseball. Speaking about his emotional state, Pujols said baseball was not going to beat him up. "I've got my faith in God, and I know I'm here for a reason," he continued. I try to stay positive all the time. Sitting in front of his locker, Hunter made a gesture, as if to ignite a cigarette lighter. As with his manager and his exalted teammate, Hunter was patiently waiting for the moment of ignition. "I know, and everybody else knows this guy is going to hit," Hunter said. Any touch of hotness - once he gets that big home run to win the game, or a big hit to win the game, something like that, it's over. Sciosia agreed. "Albert is the one guy in our lineup that can really get a team going by getting in his game," he said. It's not all on Albert, but he's that dynamic of an offensive player that he has to be the catalyst and spark that we need on the offensive side.