Albert Pujols hits historic homer, Cardinals rally past Pirates

Albert Pujols has had a love-hate relationship with PNC Park and the Pittsburgh Pirates, one that spans the lifetime of the ballpark: The St. Louis Cardinals slugger loves to hit there; the Pirates hate the results.

The 42-year-old Pujols blasted a game-tying, two-run shot in the seventh inning for his 696th career home run to tie Alex Rodriguez for the fourth-most homers in major league history, then tied it again in the eighth with an RBI single.

Nolan Arenado delivered a two-out, three-run double off Wil Crowe in the top of the ninth inning to lift the Cardinals to a 7-5 win Saturday night before an announced crowd of 22,042 at PNC Park.

Pujols, who is retiring at the end of the season, now trails only Barry Bonds (762), Henry Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714) in all-time home runs. Pujols has 17 home runs this season, including 10 in the past 31 games, in his pursuit of becoming the fourth player to hit 700.

It was the 33rd homer in 99 games since 2001 at PNC Park for Pujols, who has spent 12 of his 22 seasons in the National League with the Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers and 10 in the American League with the L.A. Angels.

“He’s a really good player and he’s been a good player for a long time. There’s probably a stretch for 10 or 12 years where he was the best hitter in baseball and probably one of the best hitters in the history of the game,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said of Pujols. “We threw him a flat slider in the zone and he hit it for a homer and then we did not execute another pitch, which we probably should have thrown a different pitch. He’s really smart and he beat us.”

After Tyler O’Neill hit a leadoff double in the seventh, Pujols came to bat with a chance to tie the game. He drilled Pirates right-hander JT Brubaker’s first-pitch slider 418 feet to left field at an 111.2 exit velocity — the hardest hit of the game.

“It was a historic homer,” Brubaker said, “but that one kind of sucks and it hurts.”

The Pirates took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, after Oneil Cruz led off the first inning with a bloop single to left to extend his hitting streak to a career-best seven games. Batting leadoff for the 12th consecutive game, Cruz raised his batting average 32 points, from .198 to .230.

Bryan Reynolds grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, bringing Rodolfo Castro to bat with two outs. Castro drove a belt-high fastball 396 feet to center field for his seventh home run and a 1-0 Pirates lead.

After Ke’Bryan Hayes drew a full-count walk to start the second, Jack Suwinski smacked another Jack Flaherty fastball 404 feet to right field for his 15th homer to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead in the second.

The Cardinals cut it to 3-1 in the fifth inning when Brendan Donovan sent a 1-1 sinker 390 feet to right for his fourth homer.

Tyler O’Neill led off the sixth with a double to left, then reached third on Nolan Gorman’s groundout to short. That brought the game-tying run to bat in Pujols, who hit his 33rd career double at PNC Park in the second inning.

After Pujols homered to make it 3-3, Cruz gave the Pirates a 4-3 lead in the seventh by driving JoJo Romero’s 1-1 changeup 380 feet to right for his 14th home run. It was the seventh extra-base hit in the last seven games for Cruz, who has 14 hits in that stretch.

The four 23-year-olds — Cruz, Castro, Suwinski and Cal Mitchell — combined for eight hits, four runs scored and four RBIs.

“Those kids continue to have good at-bats,” Shelton said, “and that’s really important for us moving forward.”

Pujols tied it again in the eighth. After Gorman hit a two-out double to right field, Pujols hit Robert Stephenson’s 0-2 fastball to center to score pinch runner Tommy Edman to knot it up at 4-4.

“Probably not a good idea to throw a guy that’s going into the Hall of Fame in five years three straight fastballs,” Shelton said. “That’s what we did. We beat him with the first two, he popped them up, then we tried to go up even higher. That’s why he is who he is, regardless of how old he is or what he’s done this year versus right-handed pitching. He’s smart and he stayed hard and he got a pitch out over the plate and put in play right over the middle.”

The Cardinals got a big hit from another 40-something in catcher Yadier Molina, who singled up the middle off Crowe to start the ninth. He was replaced on the bases by pinch runner Lars Nootbaar, who raced from first to third on Paul DeJong’s bloop single to right.

Donovan grounded out to first base, where Michael Chavis touched the bag but elected not to attempt to turn the double play but instead held the runner at third. Corey Dickerson hit a bouncer to Castro, who threw home in time for catcher Tyler Heineman to tag out Nootbaar. A review showed that Delay did not block Nootbaar’s path to the plate.

Paul Goldschmidt worked out of an 0-2 count, twice fouling off pitches with a full count that Heineman couldn’t corral before drawing a walk in a 10-pitch at-bat against Crowe to load the bases.

“We’d got him down,” Shelton said. “That’s also the reason the guy’s probably going to be the MVP because of the fact that he does grind through at-bats. He worked a good at-bat.”

Arenado followed by turning on an inside fastball by Crowe and doubling down the left-field line to drive in three runs for a 7-4 lead.

“He put a good swing on it and hit it down the line,” Crowe said. “Tip your cap to him. It’s not like I missed over the middle or didn’t throw it where I wanted to. I was convicted on that pitch and that’s all I can do.”

Mitchell led off the bottom of the ninth with a double off the top of the Clemente Wall in right, then advanced to third on Heineman’s groundout to short. After Cruz popped up to Arenado for the second out, Reynolds singled to right to score Mitchell to cut it to 7-5 before Castro grounded out to second to end the game.

“There’s so many encouraging signs on what we did offensively,” Shelton said, “and we have to continue to build off those.”