That might be right Albert Pujols And the Molina runs They took their final arcs last season for baseball without a watch.
Across 41 combined seasons, starting and ending, he will be remembered in St. Louis basics In uniform, the duo accelerated, slowed and directly challenged the sport’s timing, subconscious but usually ruthless.
All of them debuted at the age of 21 and retired Sunday night as a member of the quartet, When the Cardinals fell to Philadelphia Phyllis In the NL wild-card series. The duo won the World Championships twice together, made 21 All-Star games together, and earned 11 gold gloves and seven silver players. Pujols, one of the featured players of the millennium, won three MVP awards, Rookie of the Year and a batting title. They wore No. 4 and No. 5, building an impossibly elegant bridge to No. 6 Stan Musical.
Of course, Pujols didn’t do something Musial never did (and never had the ability to do voluntarily): he left St. Louis. His 10-year deal worth $240 million with Los Angeles Angels It was a moment when baseball was forced to check her watch. She broke the spell of immortality, and over a decade the Pujols landed on a buoy to mark the MLB tides.
In a short time, I moved it along with Continuous appearance of cardinals in October With the harsh reality of many players and teams not getting even a single second in the sun. Pujols saw a similarly great player, Mike Trout, achieved distinction and similar accolades without the post-season brilliance. Soon, another star was named Bryce Harper He rocked the game by moving on from his original team, only to see him instantly shine to world championship glory behind his early replacement. The duo who worked through an almost sleepless night at the Winter Meetings to bring the Pujols to the Angels – General Manager Jerry DePoto and GM Associate Scott Servier has found a second, more joyful job driving the car. Seattle Mariners For the first time since 2001.
That year, Pujols was the second brightest debutante phenomenon. Taking home the NL Rookie of the Year, Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki claimed the AL – as Julio Rodriguez will be doing this season – and led a 116-win team that suddenly crashed, then never came back. Don’t bow down to sentimentality or narrative pressure. It does not give the same time, and will stop without warning.
The numbers of Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina will echo through time
The sterling statistical records that Pujols and Molina have accumulated will now stabilize – oxidize into the distinct patina of their well-deserved bronze jobs.
With the Pujols out, there will be new active leaders in games, board appearances, hits, runs, housebaths, doubles, RBIs, walks, intentional walks, sacrifice flies, total rules and redeeming wins above. The 703’s will hold on to a memory, eventually becoming more familiar to a baseball fan than his curly batting pose or his beaming smile.
The numbers will also capture a period of MLB’s tectonic shifts.
2011 World Series Winners As Wild Card In the original four-team format, the Pujols’ and Molina’s Cardinals are the first Division I winners to fall before the Division Series in the new, larger MLB setting.
The changes are deeper. We don’t know exactly how many speedballs the Pujols had in the rookie season, or how fast they were. By the time he passed last Saturday, we had accurate measurements of how fast the diver he hit was spinning, and in what direction. We knew how hard the Pujols bat and the top speed he got on his way to first base for the last time. With the ways we’ve learned to compare eras, we know that OPS was 57% better than average in its rookie year, and 54% shockingly better than average on its unexpected big end.
Despite all the leaps forward, the quantitative effect of Molina’s wise presence would be stubbornly elusive. When the time comes to assess the state of the Hall of Fame owned by the powerhouse, we will now have numbers to confirm his superiority in taking pitches and stealing hits, but we will lack compelling evidence of his most important role in calling those stadiums and guiding several generations of bowlers to success.
To prove it, we will have to rely on the reverence of our teammates.
How Albert Pujols and Yadir Molina challenged the odds of baseball
“There is a lot of magic with Albert and Yadi,” Adam Wainwright said after the match. “Feel you can’t go out like that?”
It was hard not to wonder if Pujols and Molina had another moment of magic. Pujols and Molina both seized one last chance in the final two rounds in Saturday’s game two, then made way for the sprinters’ discus. But Velez, who knows all about the unforgiving game hourThey cast overwhelming painters on the cardinals and gain themselves more time.
They were puzzled. It was a loss at the end of a glorious victory lap that was given so little.
Pujols seemed to be limping until sunset late last summer in Anaheim. After a difficult start to his comeback season in St. Louis, Reportedly thought of calling it a day in June. Then he made adjustments to the board and turned on an old second half that includes it Its amazing run of up to 700 homes. Molina, along with Wainwright, broke the all-game record with a single battery group and led another team to another NL Central crown.
Louis’ top players of the year – world player of the year mainstay contenders Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado – struggled to sweep two games and appeared to have lost more than Pujols and Molina.
“Albert, Yadi, these guys are legends,” The dreary Arenado for reporters. “It is such an honor to play with them. We wanted to do it for them, we couldn’t get it done.”
There is no World Championship ring yet, and neither is nearly ready to admit the ticking of the clock. But Arenado, Goldschmidt, Jerry Dipoto, Julio Rodriguez, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto and everyone else’s crush to stay on top will soon realize it if they haven’t already: What Pujols and Molina did is probably harder than just coming out higher. They defeated the forces that kicked out most of the players. They have survived the devastating effects of age and 162 game seasons. With a lot of help and good luck, they rose to the occasion of actively walking – safely at first and aware of their place in the game.
So no, most of them can’t come out like that. Albert Pujols and Yadir Molina know it just like everyone else.
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