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Gotta give it up for AP5. Man he nutted that ball. I thought he was done and that may be true overall but wow what a day for him and the team.
Box score and game log says there was a 6-5-3 Double play in the 6th with Arenado making the put out at second base. Can anyone describe how that happened?
This was a big win. It sends the message to the Brewers that it is going to be very tough to take the division from us this year. I still think the trade deadline really changed the momentum for the two teams.
Easy to lose sight of this after the tie breaking tater by Carlson and the 3 run bomb by the great Pujols, but this weekend featured 3 incredibly outstanding turns from the rotation and let’s face it, the 5 man is the key, like always, to the promised land.
GO REDBIRDS!
He was meant to be a St. Louis Cardinal.
On the surface, a basic elementary comment, but in reality, very profound words compliments of TD (One Extremely Tough Dominican). I too think that if Albert had remained a Cardinal, those mundane years in California would have instead been solid campaigns in St. Louis. Being a Cardinal brings out the best in Albert. It should go without saying that if Albert had stayed in St. Louis, he would have already surpassed that 700 career total. As it stands now, this is going to be super close and super interesting in regards to Albert getting #700 by season’s end. Yadi is as good as retired at the end of this year, but Waino and Albert have clearly shown that their gas tanks have not come dangerously close to hitting E yet. Could we see two of our three departing amigos return for encore performances in 2023? I think Waino is a definite yes.
I think Waino is a definite yes.
Yadi is a most likely no.
Albert is a probably no but he may waffle if he continues to slug.He was meant to be a St. Louis Cardinal.
Unfortunately there were things in life more important to him than being a Cardinal. It was his choice.
Waino looks like he can come back for another round. If Albert finishes the season at say 694 home runs, he has to be seriously thinking of catching on somewhere, and that “somewhere” would be St Louis as his first choice.
Yadi indeed appears to be running on fumes at this point. But catching will do that to you. It’s the second toughest job on the field.
Albert Pujols, 42 years and 210 days old today, now owns both the #8 and #9 spots on this list of oldest players with a multi homer game, thanks to his second such game of 2022 earlier today. pic.twitter.com/HvcW8XFBNX
— High Heat Stats (@HighHeatStats) August 14, 2022
Hes also 35 rbis away from becoming 2nd all time in career RBIs surpassing babe ruth. Will be interesting to see what he are the cardinals decide. Both that and 700 hr clearly in reach with another year of healthy limited play.
On that 6-5-3 double play, in going to the game in Denver last week I noticed against left hand hitters, the Cardinals will move the thirdbaseman to the right side of second base with two strikes.
Kind of a quirky deal. They keep the third slacker in his regular position with less than two strikes, although still shifted quite a bit, to guard against a possible bunt attempt.
In seeing that I thought about my days playing vintage (19th century) base ball (yes, two words). I played shortstop, and a practice we occasionally did was have the base “tenders” play a step off their bags, and the shortstop shift over to the gap between first and second against lefty batters. That was a common practice in some areas in the early days of the organized game. Gradually as the game evolved, the base “tenders” began on to play farther from their bases as it became clear you could get to more batted balls and still had time to cover your base when needed.
Now here we are all these years later and the dramatic shift is back in vogue. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the subject of Albert pujols and what he would have done if he stayed with Cardinals, would he have had 5 or 6 more years of continued greatness. The answer is no if you look at the facts. That last year for the Cardinals was the first time he had hit below 300 for a while if not the first time at all. Sure it was right there at the mark but it was a big drop from before. His ops was still good but still a pretty good drop from before. He had a lot of injuries particularly plantar fasciitis if I remember or something similar but carried that going forward with the angels. His numbers with the angels weren’t that bad actually but they were a far cry from his glory days from 2001 through 2010. He was legendary in those years and far as we know all without any aid. Staying with the Cardinals wasn’t going to improve his health or declining defense as time went on. If he had stayed with Cardinals, we may not be having him this season. My guess would be he would have been moved at some point, some way, some how. We didn’t get the dh til this year and I think the Cardinals would have wanted to move on plus we might not have gotten goldy. Either way I don’t think his numbers would be better in fact you probably could say he benefitted being where they had the dh so his numbers could easily have been less. Let’s be honest, if they didn’t have dh this year, pujols would not be here.
Great to see Pujols thrive.
Players in the top-5 all-time club for 2Bs, HRs, RBI, XBH, and Total Bases: Pujols, and NOE*.
* no one else
Willie82…Yeah, undoubtedly there’d be no Pujols in St.L in ’22 without the DH. And as I stated, my hunch is based on absolutely nothing that could be remotely characterized as tangible. The only thing I can possibly base my guess on can be summed up in one word…”youneverknow.”
1toughdominican, I know what you are saying. I love pujols as much as anyone and what he meant to the team and fans. I was also one of those mad we didn’t go all out to resign him. But as time went on, I started looking at it objectively. He had those injuries and his last year while on the surface was pretty good, it was far off what he had done before. And those numbers kept dropping with the angels, they would have done the same with us. The injuries weren’t something that was going away anytime soon. Now personally I still feel the Cardinals owed him that money. He took far less than he deserved the first contract. Sure he was getting lots of money but far less than what he had earned by basically being legendary, an all time top ten, probably top five player. So I feel he deserved that respect when it came to the contract. But in reality, I think it went the way it should. He got his money and because of the dh, he got to play longer and put up decent numbers. He didn’t do a dale Murphy and totally disappear. So I think it worked out for the best all around unless you are an angels fan maybe.
82 Willie…Oh yeah, it most definitely worked out for the best all across the board. I, like yourself, was incredibly disappointed when he headed to Cal. but soon realized it was a sort of fateful arrangement. Let’s face it, the Redbirds immediately replaced the production with Beltran and ultimately were two wins away from a another world championship in ’13. Not to mention staying very competitive up until this very moment in time. And the proverbial cherry on top of the entire chain of storybook events may be his return home to where it all started, and the thrill of once again seeing the great Albert Pujols punishing the baseball in a Cardinal uniform in yesterday’s ballgame that was provided for all of us Redbird fans. And hey, man…The ride’s not over yet! In any event, always good to talk baseball with you, Willie! Take good care and…GO REDBIRDS!
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