Albert Pujols found Home Run Derby magic this summer at Dodger Stadium. Now it could be the spot of his 700th home run.
caught fire in early August, and it appeared the St. Louis Cardinals slugger would make an improbable 11th-hour run to 700 homers, Mark McGwire began tracking his long-ago teammate through the MLB app and tuning into as many Pujols plate appearances as he could.
Pujols hit the 698th homer of his career, a two-run, score-tying shot that traveled 427 feet to left field in a win over the Cincinnati Reds in St. Louis last Friday night. Though he hit his 500th and 600th homers and collected his 3,000th hit and 2,000th RBI for the Angels, several lower-body injuries and age sapped the first baseman of his prodigious power, and his production plummeted. He hit .256 with a .758 OPS and averaged 24 homers and 85 RBIs in nine full seasons in Anaheim., Pujols, then 41 and with 667 career homers, signed with the Dodgers.
Pujols has received regular text messages and FaceTime calls from former Dodgers teammates offering encouragement during his pursuit of 700 and is looking forward to reconnecting with them this weekend. His tepid start to 2022 didn’t fuel much hope. Pujols had a season-low .189 average, .601 OPS, four homers and 17 RBIs in his first 43 games — and the team’s first 87 games — through July 4.home run derby
Pujols has always crushed left-handers — he has a career .301 average and .954 OPS and is hitting .352 with a 1.154 OPS against them this season— but he’s been hitting right-handers so well that “it’s hard to take his bat out of the lineup,” Cardinals bench coach Skip Schumaker said. He hit five homers in one five-game span from Aug. 14-20, his march toward 700 turning into a sprint and fueling his team’s push from a half-game behind Milwaukee in the NL Central at the All-Star break to a 7 1/2-game lead.
“Why it took this long, I don’t know. I think God has his ways to turn things around. But for me, it was just trying to really repeat the same swing that I’ve been doing for my whole career.”
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