By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
(BASEBALL)—Some teams are watching their magic numbers dwindle for pennant-clinching. But many fans are waiting to see magic numbers for two great hitters, one in the full flower of his career and the other watching the shadows move closer.
(PUJOLS)—Albert Pujols continues to add drama to each home run as he heads toward 700 for his career. Friday night, with his team down by two runs, Pujols blasted a 427-foot shot into the left field stands for number 698. Five of his six recent home runs either have tied games or given the Cardinals the lead as they went into this week with a magic number of their own: eight.
His renaissance since the all-Star break has been a key in the St. Louis drive for a divisional championship. In games in which Pujols has homered, the Cardinals are 15-1.
Baseball being a game of statistics, here are some about Pujols going into the last 14 games of his career. His home run off the Reds’ Raynel Espinel was the 89th first-pitch homer of his career. He has ten more when the count is 1-1 and 92 when he took the first pitch for a ball.
Raynel is the 453rd pitcher to give up a Pujols home run. Pujols hit the first pitch he saw from Espinal for a home run Friday. It was the 89th first-pitch home run of Pujols’ career. The only counts where he’s hit more home runs have come on 1-1 (99 HRs) and 1-0 (92).
His home run off Espinal was his 49th career home run against the Reds. He has 62 against the Astros, 59 against the Cubs and another 54 against the Pirates.
He admits he’s feeding off the excitement of the crowd. “I can feel that energy,” he said Sunday, “and when I’m going out there and performing, I’m going out here to represent God, this organization, and also my country. I want to make my country proud every single day that I step onto that field.”
(JUDGE)—Sometime this week, the Yankees’ Aaron Judge is likely to catch former Cardinal outfielder Roger Maris’s American League home run record.
It’s a record often overlooked because of the overall record set first by the Cardinals Mark McGwire and then eclipsed by Barry Bonds of the Giants.
But Maris’ record set 61 years ago this year, is likely to fall to Judge, who upped his total to 59 Sunday with two homers against the Brewers. Judge brushes off repeated questions about whether can do it. “We’ve got some big games coming up. That’s really the only thing on my mind,” he said Sunday night.
Maris took a lot of heat in 1961 about whether his 61 home runs really beat Babe Ruth’s 34-year old record of 60. That was the first year the American League went to the 162-game schedule. The National League followed suit in 1962. Baseball commissioner Ford Frick decided Maris did not really break The Babe’s record because he didn’t hit number 61 until the 162nd game. He ordered an asterisk attached the Maris record because Ruth set his record in a 154-game season.
As of the end of Sunday’s games, the Yankees had played 146 games. Judge is on course to break the Maris record—and the Ruth record.
However, if you want to get picky about it, Ruth only played 151 games in 1927.
Many do not remember (it has been sixty years and more, after all) that Maris bracketed his Yankee years by playing for both Missouri teams. He was traded by the then-Cleveland Indians to the Kansas City Athletics in 1968 and after the 1959 season went to the Yankees. He played his last two seasons in St. Louis, 1967-68.
(THE SEASON RECORD)—To update you on the question we asked last week: Will the Royals win more games this year than the Cardinals lose? After Sunday’s game, the Royals were 58-89. The cardinals were 87-61.
(NASCAR)—The chaotic first round of NASCAR playoffs has come to a chaotic end with Chris Buescher winning the night race at Bristol, ending a 222-race winless streak and giving Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing its first checkered flag.
The last time the once-proud Roush Racing organization won a Cup rate was July, 2017. Roush Racing became Roush-Fenway in 2007 when the Fenway Sports Group bought in, It added the “K” this year when driver Brad Keselowski bought in.
For a time it appeared Keselowski would be the one to claim the teams’ first win. But a flat tie with 87 laps to go took him out of the lead. He finished 13th.
Buescher is the third non-playoff driver to win a race in the three-race first round of the playoffs, a first-time record. He’s the 19th driver to win a race this year, the most in a half-century. He took the lead from Christopher Bell with 61 laps left and held off Chase Elliott the rest of the way.
The race eliminated four competitors from the playoffs. 2014 champion Kevin Harvick, needing a win, was in contention until a tire change problem in his last pit stop dropped him to tenth. Two-time champion Kyle Busch, clinging to a playoff spot, lost an engine for the second time in three races and finished 34th. Childress Racing teammates Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick were caught in a 12-car wreck just past the halfway point. Dillon was 31st and Reddick kept going to finish 25th.
Chase Elliott, who finished about a half-second behind Buescher, goes into the second three-race series of playoffs as the top seed. Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Bell, Ryan Blaney, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, and rookie Austin Cindric make up the rest of the field.
The first race of round two will be at the Texas Motor Speedway.
(INDYCAR)—Hopes of INDYCAR driver Colton Herta that he might be in Formula 1 next year have been dashed by F1’s administrative body, prompting strong criticism from both INDYCAR and Formula 1 drivers and teams.
F1 relies on a points system to determine who can have a Superlicense to compete. The system requires 40 points and Herta has only 32. Despite efforts by Red Bull, the dominant F1 team this year, to get a waiver for Herta, administrators have refused.
Herta, how 22, won his first INDYCAR race four years ago at 18, the youngest driver in INDYCAR history to win in the series. He drives for Andretti Autosport, which had hoped to get permission to run an F1 team in 2023. But that bid was rejected by the sanctioning body and by other teams. McLaren signed Herta as a development driver for 2022, giving him opportunities to practice in Formula 1 cars. Alfa Tauri had considered providing a seat for him next year. But all of those efforts have gone by the boards.
Herta will remain with Andretti in the INDYCAR series in 2023. He had a win, two poles, five top five finishes, and eight top tens to finish in a tie for 9th in the final standings.
(Photo credits; Bob Priddy, Jim Coleman)