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There is a new member in the baseball 700 home run club.
Albert Pujols hit his 700th career home run Friday night, becoming just the fourth player in MLB history to do so.
He became the only player in the 700-home run club to join Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).
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He also hit the 699th early in the game. Pujols also hit the 499th and 500th in the same game.
Bonds was the last person to hit 700 on September 17, 2004. He hit an additional 62 throughout his career to become the home run king, but many believe that Aaron still holds the true record because of Bonds’ alleged ties to performance-enhancing drugs. thinking about. .
Aaron achieved the 700th in 1973, while Ruth did it in 1934.
Pujols is back with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was drafted by the Cardinals in his 1999 but topped his league in the minors. In 2001, not only was he named the National League Rookie of the Year, but he came to the attention of the majors as he finished fourth in his NL MVP voting that year.
From 2001 to 2011, he won three MVPs, two World Series titles, and led the Majors in the OPS three times, establishing himself as one of the greatest players in baseball history. 328 batting average, 445 home runs, 1,329 RBIs, and 1.037 OPS in 1,705 total games.
At that point, it wasn’t a question of if he would join the 700 Club, but when.
However, following the 2011 season, he signed a 10-year contract worth $240 million with the Los Angeles Angels, and his performances were noticeably lower, especially during the final stages of the deal.
He was a walker in his first season in the West, posting 30 home runs and 105 RBIs in . 285, but underwhelmed the next four years.
From 2013 to 2016, his OPS was just .783. He averaged 29 home runs that year, but failed to live up to his contract and only got worse.
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In 460 games between 2017 and his final game as an Angel in 2021, he was just .240 with a .694 OPS. The Angels made him his DFA and the Dodgers scooped him up. He hit his 12th home run in his 85th game.
Pujols became a free agent again, and he and the Cardinals agreed to reunite for the final season.
Going into the year, he needed 21 home runs to accomplish the feat. With his performances in recent years, the 700 was an outside chance. A strange idea considering that from 2001 he averaged 37 home runs in a season through 2015.
And usually, the pressure of moments like that can cause a lot of players to collapse. became one of the best hitters in the
Coming into Friday night, he’s been an old Pujols since July 10, hitting .312 and 1.026 OPS. He now has 17 home runs in his last 54 games. 198 to .261 and OPS from .624 to .845. Once again, it became a question of when – not whether.
Pujols wasn’t the only cardinals to make history this year.Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina broke all-time MLB record Most of the time it will start on the battery. Wainwright threw the first pitch of the game to Yaddy on Wednesday for the 325th time in his career.
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Molina plans to retire at the end of the season and join Pujols, but Wainwright has yet to decide.
However, it is not known exactly when their career will end. With the Cardinals heading into the postseason this year, the trio will be on top and looking to win the World Series for the third time in his career.
The smell of destiny in St. Louis.