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I went to bed shortly after Albert Pujols hit his third home run last night. I guess I should have expected this to happen, but when I got up this morning I was somewhat astonished by the level of hyperbole in people's reactions. Yeah, Albert Pujols had a pretty good game, but let's take a closer look at the home runs:
Inning | Score Before | Score After |
Sixth | 8-6 | 11-6 |
Seventh | 12-6 | 14-6 |
Ninth | 15-7 | 16-7 |
I know it's rare for a batter to hit this many home runs in a World Series game (Pujols is the fourth ever and the first since 1977), but it's also relatively rare for a World Series game to have this much garbage time. Pujols' last two home runs expanded the Cardinals' lead from six to eight and eight to nine.
Pujols' first home run was the turning point in the game according to FanGraphs, and increased the Cardinals' chances of winning by over 15%. But the second one was only good for 1.9%, and the third was 0.1%.
Let's look at it from another perspective: In postseason history there have been eight three-home run games. By WPA, Pujols' game ranks dead last among them:
Player | Season | Series | Game | WPA |
Adam Kennedy | 2002 | ALCS | 5 | +.634 |
Reggie Jackson | 1977 | WS | 6 | +.386 |
Babe Ruth | 1926 | WS | 4 | +.337 |
Adrian Beltre | 2011 | ALDS | 4 | +.319 |
George Brett | 1978 | ALCS | 3 | +.301 |
Bob Robertson | 1971 | NLCS | 2 | +.254 |
Babe Ruth | 1928 | WS | 4 | +.241 |
Albert Pujols | 2011 | WS | 3 | +.211 |
By WPA, Pujols' game last night was the 28th best this postseason. He's behind teammates Allen Craig, Jon Jay and David Freese (twice), and he's also behind his own performance in Game 2 of the NLCS.
Someone's going to jump down my throat in the comments for this, so let me make sure I make this point perfectly clear. Pujols accomplished something great last night. He's in rare territory historically. No one's saying that what he did wasn't impressive. But calling last night the greatest performance in postseason history is just silly.