double visions

the other day david pinto wondered whether pujols might have a shot at breaking the all-time doubles record, held by tris speaker with 792. all albert has to do is avg 50 doubles a year through the remainder of his 20s, then 35 a year throughout his 30s, and he’s got it. piece a shinola . . .

while we await that happy development in 2020, we can watch pujols’ ascent of various franchise all-time leaderboards. significant gains to be reaped this year on the career hr list; he already stands 9th with 160 and will likely pass simmons, bottomley, and hornsby this season to reach 6th place; should overtake mcgwire and lankford next year to reach #4, just behind jim edmonds — who entered this season 21 dingers ahead of pujols, in 6th place on the franchise leaderboard. edmonds may creak up to 2d place before all is said and done but will drop to third shortly thereafter as pujols blows by him. albert on pace to depose stan the man, atop the chart with 475 hr, in about 2016, ending The Man's reign of 53 years.

or 13 years longer than the babe reigned as mlb’s all-time hr king.

on the pitching side of the ledger, matt morris stands to climb four spots on the strikeout list (passing larry jackson, bill doak, steve carlton, and jesse haines) to rank #4 by the end of the year, behind only gibson, dean, and forsch. (you heard me right — bob forsch is the third-whiffingest redbird hurler ever, with 1079 . . . . .in, ahem, 2,794 innings.) mattymo also likely will crack the top 10 in games started and could, with a stellar season (21 wins), break into the top 10 in wins. morris also prob’ly rises to 5th by the end of this year in homers allowed. the guy’s all over these leaderboards — 8th in career winning pct (.626), 6th in k-w ratio (2.55), 10th in hit batsmen (could rise to 6th or so this season).

it’s about time we started appreciating the boyo — especially since this may be his last year in stl.