The Pirates beat the Cardinals for the second night in a row, going eleven innings to do so. It looked like St. Louis might take the lead in the top of the inning when with a man on first, Albert Pujols hit a fly ball deep into the gap in left-center. I was thinking double, but Andrew McCutchen flew over and made a nice running catch to end the threat.
That brought up Garrett Jones, who hit a 2-2 pitch out of the park to win the game. Pittsburgh climbs back to five games under .500 as they try for their first winning season since 1992.
Pujols did hit a home run in the game, giving him 30 for the season. He’s now hit 30 home runs in all eleven major league seasons he played.
He may not get that ten year contract, but at this point it’s reasonable to ask how much more he needs to do to become the consensus choice for “best first baseman of all time.” He doesn’t have the collection of utter monster seasons that the Iron Horse had (Albert’s best OPS+ was 190 in the 2008 season–Gehrig matched or beat that *six* times, with three seasons over 200 and peaking at 220 in 1927), but Albert has been so ridiculously consistent that his career OPS+ is only 7 lower than Gehrig’s (178 to 171). If Albert can keep grinding out seasons in the 170 to 180 range, by the time he reaches his late thirties he’d have to be considered #1 in career value at 1B, though barring a surprising (and suspicious) late career new peak in performance by Pujols, Gehrig will retain the #1 spot for peak value.
M. Scott Eiland » I think there’s little doubt Albert is already the greatest first baseman of all time. It’s much more difficult to post monster seasons now than in the 1920s and 1930s due to the better competition. Pitchers throw harder and mix in more pitches that Gehrig saw. Players are just bigger, stronger faster than they were in Lou’s day.
Take a look at a picture of the 1927 Yankees sometime. What stands out is the size of Ruth and Gehrig relative to the rest of the team. At 6-3, 230, Albert is not unusually big for the game.
That’s certainly not an unreasonable argument, and to be honest the only real counterpoint is Gehrig’s peak seasons as measured by OPS+. I suspect that to get a consensus that he deserves the title, he’s going to have to keep plugging away at the same rate for several more seasons.
Which brings up another point: can an argument be made that Pujols is the most *consistent* great player of all time?
M. Scott Eiland » Henry Aaron was amazingly consistent. Albert may be better, however.