The legendary Dominican slugger Albert Pujols He made history this Friday by adding his 700th major league home run.
“The Machine”, as the 42-year-old veteran player is known, hit two home runs in the third and fourth innings of the match between his St. Louis Cardinals against the Los Angeles Dodgers, two home runs with which Pujols reached the magical figure of 700 balls out of the park.
Pujols has 21 home runs so far this season and thus became the fourth player to reach 700 or more home runs in Major League history.
Pujols, who has already announced that he will retire at the end of this season, thus placed his name alongside those of giants such as Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714), the only three players who, before than him, were part of this exclusive club.
After a home run in the third episode that left him just one short of the magic number of 700, the entire audience at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (USA) stood up in the fourth inning before the possibility that it was a historic moment in the Major Leagues.
Pujols fulfilled the expectation, sending the ball out of the park and celebrating with a huge smile and open arms running the bases before hugging with all the members of his team.
The Dodgers crowd gave Pujols a standing ovation and even rivals on the Los Angeles team tonight, like Mookie Betts, applauded the extraordinary achievement of the Dominican.
Pujols, the only Latino with 700 home runs
The Santo Domingo native, who thus became the only Latino to date with 700 homers in his MLB history, managed to reach the figure supported by a powerful second half of the season.
After a first half, before the All-Star Game, in which he hit six homers, Pujols has sent 15 balls beyond the limits of the field of play to complete this new milestone in his major league career.
Pujols, who returned to the Cardinals for his final season in the “Great Circus,” has been able to combine longevity, as his 22-year career in the league shows, and consistency with the wood this journey that points to the Hall of the Major League Baseball fame.
In this historic stint in American baseball, the star slugger has recorded 17 seasons of 20 or more full-return hits. The Dominican has to his credit 14 seasons in which he sent 30 or more balls out of the park, 12 of them consecutively. Pujols also exceeded the 40-homer barrier seven times.
In these 22 years hitting long-distance hits, the powerful right-handed hitter of the Cardinals achieved two home run leaders in the National League, the first when he had 47 knocks in the 2009 campaign and the second in the 2010 season, when he finished with 42 homers.
Pujols reached his most home runs in a season in the 2006 race, when he hit 49 homers.
With an award for Rookie of the Year (2001), three distinctions as MVP of the National League (2005, 2008 and 2009), six Silver Sluggers (2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2010), 11 selections to the Game of Stars (2001, from 2003 to 2010, 2015 and 2022) and two-time World Series winner (2006 and 2011), his 700th home run crowns a brilliant career for Pujols in the Major Leagues.
SPORTS
with Eph
More sports news
#Albert #Pujols #enters #Major #League #history #home #runs #video