Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Justin Dunn threw Albert Pujols a curveball on a 3-1 count.
The 19-year veteran sent the pitch over the left-field wall, scoring two to extend the Angels’ lead to three on Tuesday night.
The home run also extended Pujols’s home run total to 659 career blasts, one short of Hall of Famer Willie Mays. With three homers already this season and never having hit less than 17 in a year, the first baseman is a near-lock to pass the “Say Hey Kid.”
The interesting thing about Pujols’s home run on Tuesday was that it came during a count in which he has hit the second-least home runs. Only 23 of his previous blasts came from a 3-1 count. Most of Pujols’s homers have come on a 1-1 count (93) and the least have come on a 3-0 count (eight).
Perhaps another interesting tidbit about the first-inning homer from Prince Albert was that just three batters before, Mike Trout hit a home run in his first at-bat since returning from the birth of his son.
Pujols sits sixth on the all-time leaderboard for career home runs. He has the remainder of this season and all of 2021 left on the massive 10-year, $240 million deal he signed after winning the 2011 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals.
It’s hard to predict exactly when Pujols will hit the tying and go-ahead home runs to pass Willie Mays, but the Angels will play Seattle twice more before a three-game weekend series against the Texas Rangers.
Pujols has hit 30 prior home runs against Seattle, the sixth-most against any single team he has played against. He has hit 25 homers against the Rangers, the eight-most against any single team in his career, as well as three against Texas in the World Series.
It’s safe to say Pujols mashes against the two teams he plays the rest of this week. He has hit one home run against Marco Gonzales, Wednesday’s scheduled pitcher for Seattle, and also one against Taijuan Walker, who is slated to pitch the following day.
With three home runs already this season, if Pujols hits at least 17 this season and repeats that number next year, he will sit at 690 homers, putting him just 10 long balls away from becoming the fourth player in MLB history with 700 career home runs.
For now, Pujols is focused on mashing. One home run at a time.
