Albert Pujols has made MLB history and moved up record books during his time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, as his latest feat was surpassing Barry Bonds and taking over fourth place on the all-time total bases list with 5,980.
Pujols accomplished as much by going 2-for-4 with an RBI single and home run in the Dodgers’ loss to the Atlanta Braves on Sunday. He was responsible for both of L.A.’s runs in what was another subpar effort by the lineup.
After a winning stretch that coincided with the signing of Pujols, the Dodgers are just 4-6 in their last 10 games and have dropped two of three series during that span. “It’s a long season,” Pujols said.
“Sometimes you’re going to hit a spurt here and there where you get a good winning streak and sometimes you’re going to have some bad innings out there where we don’t score a lot of runs for our pitchers. I think Trevor did a great job keeping us in the game.
“Our offense didn’t respond like we wanted it to, but at the end of the day we have too many great players in this clubhouse. We know what we need to do, it’s a long season, we just need to flip the page. Get on the plane, day off [Monday] and get a good start on Tuesday, hopefully try to win the series in Pittsburgh.”
In addition to moving up MLB’s all-time total bases list, Pujols is pursuing history on the home run front. His solo shot in the ninth inning on Sunday was Pujols’ 671st career home run. He’s vying to become just the fifth player in MLB history to reach 700 career homers.
In terms of total bases, the future Hall of Famer should pass Willie Mays (6,066) for third place and potentially could catch Stan Musial (6,134) this season as well. Hank Aaron (6,856) is MLB’s all-time leader in total bases.
Pujols passes Babe
Last weekend Pujols overtook Babe Ruth for fourth place on the all-time extra-base hits list when he reached 1,357 at the time.
“I can’t even begin to compliment him. When you look at the body of work, he’s in company that are in books and in black and white film,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
“He just keeps adding to that list, keeps going higher and higher on all these different lists. I just can’t say enough about the player and person.”
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