In late March, Albert Pujols and the Cardinals agreed to a one-year deal. The 3-time MVP returned to St. Louis and he also announced that he will retire after the 2022 season. Additionally, Yadier Molina will retire after this season as well. Meanwhile, Adam Wainwright is already 40 and this could be his final season in St. Louis. These three veterans won the World Series with the Cardinals and this season will be the last dance of three great players. So far, is the last dance going well? Firstly, Albert Pujols seems to be pretty happy to play in the Cardinals uniform. He already played 9 games for the Cardinals by far this season. At this moment, he’s hitting .259/.333/.519 with 2 home runs and 4 RBI. Last season, he hit only .198/.250/.372 with 5 home runs and 12 RBI in the Angels uniform and he played 85 games for the Dodgers, slashing .254/.299/.460 with 12 home runs and 38 RBI. Pujols currently has 681 home runs in his career and it will be worth watching whether he can reach 700 career home runs this year. In addition, Yadier Molina is hitting .200/.200/.225 now. By far, Molina only has an extra base hit. Moreover, Molina hasn’t collected an RBI this season. Molina has 998 RBI so far in his career. He should be able to reach the 1000 RBI milestone this season, but it just takes a longer time than expected. Furthermore, Molina’s strong arm is well known and he has an 40% caught stealing percentage so far in his career. He already threw out 2 runners who tried to steal in 2022. Finally, let’s look at Adam Wainwright, who had a great 2021 season with a 3.05 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP over 206.1 innings. Wainwright already made 4 starts for the Cardinals so far and he currently has a 3.86 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP. At age 40, Wainwright already tossed 21 innings so far. Furthermore, he already earned 186 wins in his career and it will be interesting to see whether he can reach the 200-win mark. Wainwright earned 17 wins last year. Albert Pujols’ return seems to be fine so far and he shows that he can still contribute to the Cardinals at age 42. Moreover, Adam Wainwright is still a very reliable pitcher in the Cardinals rotation. He threw 200+ innings last year and he already tossed 20+ innings in the first month of the season. However, Yadier Molina seems to have a slow start this year. Molina is still looking for his first RBI and first home run this year. Adam Wainwright didn’t pitch in 2011 due to recovering from Tommy John surgery. And, unfortunately he wasn’t with the Cardinals to win the 2011 World Series Champions. Nonetheless, Wainwright, Molina and Pujols did help the Cardinals win the 2006 World Series title. The Cardinals began the season with 11 wins and 7 losses and now they are currently second in the NL Central. The start of the last dance seems to be fine in the first month and let’s see how it goes in this long season.
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