{"id":36329,"date":"2020-09-13T17:45:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T21:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=36329"},"modified":"2020-09-13T17:45:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T21:45:01","slug":"albert-pujols-ties-willie-mays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/09\/13\/albert-pujols-ties-willie-mays\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert Pujols Ties Willie Mays on All-Time Home Run List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pujolal01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Albert Pujols<\/a><\/strong> moved into a tie with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mayswi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willie Mays<\/a><\/strong> for fifth place on the all-time home run list. His home run Sunday in the eighth inning of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/estevca01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Est\u00e9vez<\/a><\/strong> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/colorado-rockies\/\" target=\"_self\">Colorado Rockies<\/a> was the 660th of his career.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"und\">6\ufe0f\u20e36\ufe0f\u20e30\ufe0f\u20e3!!! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/O31nUhiqWu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/O31nUhiqWu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Angels\/status\/1305259195810291712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 13, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Career Milestones<\/h2>\n<p>The home run is the 215th that Albert Pujols has hit as a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/los-angeles-angels\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Angels<\/a>. It is the latest in a long career of impressive milestones for him.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, he added two of those milestones when he hit his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/05\/25\/albert-pujols-hits-646th-double\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">646th double<\/a>\u00a0and when he recorded his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/05\/09\/albert-pujols-2000-rbi-club\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2,000th RBI<\/a>. The double put him eighth on the all-time list at the time. The RBI made him one of five players in history with 2,000 RBI.<\/p>\n<p>He also became a member of the 3,000 hit club in 2017, one of only 32 players in MLB history to join that elusive club. He is currently 15th on the all-time hit list.<\/p>\n<h2>Historic Company<\/h2>\n<p>The home run cements his legacy as one of the greatest home run hitters of all time. The only four players with more home runs are <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bondsba01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barry Bonds<\/a> <\/strong>(762), <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/aaronha01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hank Aaron<\/a><\/strong> (756), <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruthba01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Babe Ruth<\/a><\/strong> (714), and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=rodrial01,rodrig026ale,rodrig021ale,rodrig025ale,rodrig022ale,rodrig011ale&amp;search=Alex+Rodriguez&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Rodriguez<\/a><\/strong> (696).<\/p>\n<p>At this stage of Pujols&#8217;s career, it was unlikely that he would catch Rodriguez in a full season, and that is out of the question for 2020 with the abbreviated season.<\/p>\n<p>His contract with the Angels expires after 2021. Therefore, a lot of things will need to go right for Pujols to catch Rodriguez. As an Angel, he averages 24 home runs per season. For argument&#8217;s sake, if he hits ten more this season, he reaches 670. An average season in 2021 puts him short of Rodriguez as well as 700.<\/p>\n<p>Reaching that milestone puts him in even more exclusive company than he already is. Not reaching it has no impact on his status as a future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: <a id=\"l69e3O6jSrdHNSh4hfB1-g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1227885081\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'l69e3O6jSrdHNSh4hfB1-g',sig:'SFYdG6vvAVm7d0T4Za8phTDuY4-TqH91bnwzZ80Kixk=',w:'594px',h:'423px',items:'1227885081',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Albert Pujols moved into a tie with Willie Mays for fifth place on the all-time home run list. His home run Sunday in the eighth inning of Carlos Est\u00e9vez of the Colorado Rockies was the 660th of his career. 6\ufe0f\u20e36\ufe0f\u20e30\ufe0f\u20e3!!! pic.twitter.com\/O31nUhiqWu \u2014 Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) September 13, 2020 Career Milestones The home run is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2758,"featured_media":36330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,2,16,35],"tags":[625,328,1231,70,2252,156,1722],"class_list":["post-36329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-featured","category-angels","category-news","tag-albert-pujols","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-babe-ruth","tag-barry-bonds","tag-hank-aaron","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-willie-mays"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}