Albert Pujols 584th HR, Trout, and Bandy lead to 8-2 rout of Jays

Albert Pujols provided the main story line in the Angels 8-2 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday night, hitting his 584th home run to move into 10th place on the MLB all-time home run list. However, Jett Bandy‘s first career four hit night and Mike Trout‘s three hit game including his 24th homer provided support of Matt Shoemaker who pitched six shutout innings for his eighth win.

In the first inning Trout went deep followed by Albert Pujols 24th home run of the season giving Shoemaker some surprising early support and the righty took advantage of it throwing up six innings of goose eggs lowering his season ERA to 3.98 and winning back-to-back starts for the first time all season.

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With Trout and Pujols they are the guys you expect to do the damage, but rookie catcher Jett Bandy has been a pleasant surprise for the Angels.  Bandy is hitting .279 with eight homers and 23 RBI’s since being called up when veteran Geovany Soto was injured in late May.  Bandy has not only done it at the plate, but his defense has been top notch as well.  Bandy has thrown out 16 of 37  potential base stealers (43%) and has made only one error in 310 chances for a .997 fielding percentage.  Bandy gained the confidence of the Angels pitching staff including Shoemaker as Bandy has caught the last five victories for Shoe. Shoemaker is 5-6 with a 2.95 ERA with Bandy behind the plate as compared to 3-7 with a 6.40 ERA with Perez and Soto behind the plate.

This is not to say that Perez or Soto did anything wrong in the handling of Shoemaker, but the numbers are quite a contrast for the 29-year old with the rookie Bandy on the receiving end. Not to mention that Bandy has hit four of his eight homers in games that Shoemaker has pitched.

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Despite all of this the man of the hour last night in Toronto had to be Pujols.  Despite his batting average only being .257, the veteran Pujols has had a superb year in other areas hitting 24 home runs and driving 99 runs so far which puts him only two behind AL leader Edwin Encarnacion who has 101 RBI’s. Pujols leads the Angels in both categories home runs and RBI’s (he is tied for first with Trout with 24 HR’s), and has come through numerous times this season with game tying and game-winning hits including three walk-off hits.

With the home run Wednesday night, Albert Pujols is now all alone in 10th place on the MLB All-Time list and is only two homers behind Frank Robinson (586 HR’s) who is 9th on the list. Pujols also is moving ever closer to 600 home runs as he is now only 16 away from that milestone. As my colleague Joshua Lea talked about today in an earlier article, Albert Pujols still has some good years left in him and 700 HR’s is not out of the question.

If nothing else this season we are watching greatness in action every day with both Pujols and Trout, as well as the development of some younger players like Bandy, Cam Bedrosian, Jefry Marte, and now Nick Buss is being added to that mix.

Next: Pujols is proving he is still the One

This is not how the Angels envisioned their season going at the outset, but sometimes things don’t go the way you planned them, or you find that your plan had some holes in it.  The Angels have found both those statements to be true this season, hopefully next year will be better.  Many fans may find that last statement to be a pipe dream, but who knows what 2017 will hold and what moves the Angels will make in the off-season that could again have the Angels challenging for the AL West and maybe more. “It could happen” (Roger Bowman from Angels in the Outfield).