Apparently, attending a baseball game is insufficient action for some people. At Tuesday night’s game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, a fight broke out between Cards and Cubs fans, leading to one man being knocked down three rows of bleachers.
Tonight in the bleachers at Wrigley pic.twitter.com/exBTsaEQdi
— Baseball Fight Club (@mlbfights) August 24, 2022
It is unclear what provoked the fight between the fans other than division rivals going at it on the back end of a day-night doubleheader. Probably too much alcohol and frankly people acting stupid and not knowing how to be civil adults.
The Cards are the class of the NL Central and the Cubs are below .500 and 17 games out of first, so the two clubs are not battling for division supremacy. The teams split the doubleheader, with the Cubs taking game one 2-0 and the Cards taking the nightcap 13-3.
The Cards have hit .310 with 18 homers while averaging seven runs over the past 10 games.
Meanwhile, their pitching staff has a 2.17 ERA with an opponents’ batting average of .178 in the past 12 games.
Not only are the Cardinals poised for a postseason run, but future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest players of all time Albert Pujols is on a bit of a hot streak and might hit his 700th career homer before the season ends.
He’s hitting .276 with 14 home runs and 28 RBIs in 210 at bats this season. His on-base, slugging and OPS splits are .350/.529/.879. That’s more than respectable for a 42 year-old in his 22nd season.
In five games last week he went 9-for-16 with five home runs and 11 RBI. He’s sitting on 693 career home runs and now he’s just seven home runs away from joining Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth with 700 in his career.
“I think at the end of the day you know you have to trust your work, and that’s something that I do,” the 42-year-old Pujols said. “I come out here, no matter where I’m playing, and continue to do my work for 22 years. … I’m the grandpa in the clubhouse. I’m having a great time.”
Pujols is not a regular starter and will continue to be used in a platoon DH situation against left-handed pitchers, whom he is still lighting up at .398/.436/.807 batting average, on-base, and slugging splits. If the Cards pull away from the Milwaukee Brewers down the stretch St. Louis could rest some of its starters, like MVP frontrunner Paul Goldschmidt, opening up some starting opportunities for Pujols down the stretch.
Pujols’ first 11 seasons in MLB were quite possibly the greatest start to any baseball career from an offensive production standpoint. He won all his MVPs, Gold Gloves and Silver Slugger awards during this stretch, and made nine of his 11 All-Star appearances.
His batting average was .328 over that span with .421/.617/1.037 averages in on-base, slugging and OPS. Pujols’ wins above replacement (WAR) with the Cards was 86.6. That’s a WAR of 7.8 per season.
WAR measures a player’s value in all facets of the game by deciphering how many more wins he’s worth than a replacement-level player at his same position. Baseball Reference measures 5+ in WAR for a single season as an All-Star level player, and 8+ as an MVP quality player.
In other words, Pujols played above, at, or near MVP level for 11 consecutive seasons. That’s unheard of. His nickname is “The Machine” for a reason.
