Don’t look now, but guess who leads the National League in home runs?
Who is batting .295 and is the only player among those who have hit at least 15 home runs to have walked more than he has struck out?
The St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols is almost the modern-day equivalent of Lou Gehrig.
After a slow start, baseball’s best player will probably bat .300, finish with about 40 home runs and drive in 100 runs.
At the beginning of June, Pujols was hitting .262.
On June 19, Pujols broke his wrist. It was believed that he wouldn’t return until early August. Fooling the “experts,” he was back in the Cardinals lineup on July 6.
Since then, he has hit .312 with a .994 OPS. He is healthy, making excellent contact and hitting with power.
Pujols has never has a season in which he didn’t hit at least .300 with 30 home runs and 100 RBI, which is why it is important that he raise his average by 0.005 points and drive in another 15 runs.
Despite the fact that the St. Louis Cardinals have little chance of making the playoffs, Pujols plays for his team first and then for himself. Earlier this month, Pujols told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch how he felt about this season:
“It’s been a long year for everybody, as a ball club and for myself,” said Pujols. “It’s never pretty. This game is not easy… I don’t think you play for individual numbers. If you play for the ball club the numbers are going to take care of themselves.”
Pujols took a swipe at those writers who criticized him when he started out poorly this year.
“Sometimes, it’s easier to write a story than it is to go out there and hit a baseball,” Pujols said. “Most (critics) probably never even played the game. They probably never threw a baseball before. But that’s the way it is. It doesn’t bother me.”
Tony La Russa has the same outlook as Pujols with respect to personal statistics:
“The good thing about somebody pursuing an individual goal is it means they’re motivated and they don’t back off the effort,” La Russa said. “The thing you have to be careful about is the distractions.
“I’ve seen guys get to 95 RBIs with a week to go and all of a sudden they go up there and they forget to just have a good at-bat, get a good pitch. Numbers count. They try to force it and they end up with 97 and they’ve thrown at-bats away.”
At the age of 31, Pujols has four or five superstar seasons remaining. He is probably the second or third greatest first baseman ever, just behind Gehrig and Jimmy Foxx, although a case could be made that he has been better than Foxx.
The fact that Pujols almost holds his own with Lou Gehrig serves to emphasize how great Pujols has been and should continue to be in the futures.
The following compares Pujols’ first 10 seasons to those of Gehrig:
Player H 2B 3B HR RBI BA OBP SLG
Pujols 1,900 426 15 408 1,230 .331 .426 .624
Gehrig 1,996 400 130 357 1,487 .346 .452 .645
Gehrig had 497 official at-bats in 1925, but since Pujols had 676 at-bats in his first season, 1926-35 was selected as Gehrig’s 10 seasons.
If Pujols doesn’t hit .300 and/or drive in at least 100 runs this season, it won’t affect his greatness, but it is a fact that certain numbers have gained undue significance.
Just ask Fred McGriff, who finished his career with 493 home runs.