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A bonafide legend of the game and a true Cardinal at heart, Albert Pujols is gearing up for one last postseason hurrah as the Wild Card Series gets underway tonight.
Pujols announced ahead of the 2022 season that this campaign would be his last. However, there was a time, not that long ago, when he contemplated not going the distance and hanging up his boots earlier than planned.
In a conversation with John Denton of MLB.com, Pujols revealed that he was on the verge of retiring in June because he was struggling.
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"Star Albert Pujols revealed to MLB (dot) com — and the #STLCards confirmed — that he contemplated retirement in June when he struggled like never before. Ultimately, Pujols stuck with it, smashed his way to 703 HRs & got the Cards to the playoffs." - John Denton
A lean patch saw Pujols hit only .158 with no homers in June, a run that made him consider hanging up his boots early.
“No, I did, I swear I did. There were some times when I [asked] myself that, many times.” - Albert Pujols
To the relief of all Cardinals fans, and baseball fans in general, Pujols had a moment of realization shortly afterward and decided to stay put. Can you imagine if he hadn’t?
Pujols hit his much-anticipated 700th career home run on September 23 at Dodger Stadium before wrapping up the regular season with 703 homers. He became just the fourth player in the history of the sport to cross 700 home runs after Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).
Albert Pujols’ resurgence has been crucial for the Cardinals’ postseason push
The St. Louis Cardinals are set to host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 of the Wild Card series. Ahead of the game, manager Oliver Marmol admitted that, without Albert Pujols’ resurgence, the Cards wouldn’t be where they are.
“There’s no way we’re in this position without Albert going off. The evolution of [Pujols’ struggles and his period of thriving] was pretty cool, though. He did a good job of [trusting his work habits] because he easily could have gone the other way and continued to question that the results weren’t there, especially to the degree that he knows that he can contribute.
"But he trusted it. He made adjustments. And now we’re here talking about him carrying the offense for weeks at a time.” - Oliver Marmol (via MLB.com)
During the last three months of the regular season, Pujols smashed 18 homers - three in July, eight in August and seven in September, while driving in 44 runs. He averaged .320 in July and .361 in August.
As Pujols took off, so did the Cardinals. Between July 30 and September 7, the Cards went 28-8 to move from four games down in NL Central to 9 ½ games ahead.
For more news and updates, go to the Sportskeeda Baseball page.
