Milestone sweetened by win
PUJOLS REACHES 3,000 HITS
SEATTLE — Albert Pujols was going to be toasted in the clubhouse regardless, but he wanted to make sure his 3,000th hit came during a win.
“I was really excited, but at the same time you still have a game you need to play, and you still need to focus to win that game,” Pujols said. “That’s what I told those guys. Let’s go win that game so it can taste a little better.”
Pujols became the 32nd member of baseball’s 3,000-hit club Friday night with a broken-bat single in the fifth inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ 5-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners. He added another single in the ninth — Mike Trout and Justin Upton scored on the hit — to pass Roberto Clemente on the MLB career hits list.
“I think he knows how important it is for our club to continue to put pressure on teams to score runs,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “Those two runs were big, obviously.”
Pujols got No. 3,000 in his sixth attempt to join the exclusive list after getting to 2,999 career hits. Pujols got just enough of Mike Leake’s pitch to find the outfield grass and add another accolade to a career that will likely be followed by induction to the Hall of Fame. He received a standing ovation from the crowd after reaching first base and being congratulated by his teammates.
The slugger made his career out of hitting the ball out of the yard, but he reached this milestone by throwing his bat at a sinker that was probably out of the strike zone. Pujols didn’t make great contact but was strong enough to loft the ball over the infield and into right.
He lined out to shortstop in the first inning and walked in the fourth before his single in the fifth, which came on a 1-0 count with two outs.
“It was fun that it turned into a little bit of a battle before he got a hit. Congratulations to him,” Leake said. “He’s a competitor every second that he’s on the field. He’s been a joy to watch and a joy to compete against, for sure.”
The 38-year-old Pujols joined Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Alex Rodriguez as the only major leaguers with 3,000 hits and 600 homers. Pujols, who had 620 home runs going into Saturday night’s game against the Mariners, became the first player to reach 3,000 hits since Adrian Beltre last year against Baltimore.
Pujols is the second player from the Dominican Republic to reach 3,000, with Beltre the first. With Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki stepping away this past week for the remainder of the 2018 season, Beltre is the only active player with more hits than Pujols.
And it may be a while before another player joins the club. Next on the list is the Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera, who is more than 300 hits away, and after Cabrera is Robinson Cano, who’s nearly 600 shy of the mark.
“I’m aware of the legacy and the people that I tie and am on the same page right now. But at the end of the day, it’s about winning a championship,” said Pujols, who won World Series titles with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006 and 2011. “Nothing would be more special than in September and October playing in the playoffs and bringing a championship back to the city of Anaheim.”
A three-time National League MVP with the Cardinals, Pujols joined the Angels in 2012. He and Hall of Famer Rod Carew are the only players to record their 3,000th hit with the Angels.
Pujols is in the seventh season of the lavish 10-year, $240 million contract that persuaded him to leave the Cardinals, with whom he earned nine All-Star selections while establishing himself as one of the greatest hitters of his generation.
He has been chosen for just one AllStar team and has yet to win a playoff game in Anaheim during his first six seasons in partnership with Trout, a twotime American League MVP, but these Angels were off to an encouraging 19-12 start with Friday’s win.
Pujols’ accomplishment came in a victory partially because of the pitching of Garrett Richards (4-1), who scattered four hits and had eight strikeouts as he took a shutout into the seventh inning. Star rookie Shohei Ohtani had two hits, including a fifth-inning double that scored Pujols and Upton to make it 3-0. Pujols also scored the game’s first run, coming home from third on Andrelton Simmons’ shallow single to center field.
Pujols reached the precipice of the milestone in Anaheim, getting two hits against Baltimore on Wednesday night before reaching 2,999 on a second-inning double Thursday night.
He came to the plate three more times with the chance to hit the mark in front of a home crowd that was on its feet. But Pujols couldn’t quite do it, eventually flying out to right and deflating his eager fans in the eighth inning of a 12-3 win.
“Trust me, I wanted to do it last night,” Pujols said Friday. “But it didn’t happen last night. It just happened tonight.”