Albert Pujols Triple Crown?

Agreed. The NL Central race will be the most fun race in baseball to follow, and the Pujols-Votto battle just adds to it.

Pujols had a big day yesterday. Votto is going to have to get really hot to catch him in home runs, and Pujols is within striking range in average.

The Reds just finished up the 5th inning in San Francisco...Votto is 2 for 3 with 2 homers and 3 RBI. That puts him at 31 homers to Albert's 33 and 89 RBI to Albert's 92. Cards play at 7 tonight.

Votto added another (game winning) RBI in the 12th. Now within 2 home runs and 2 rbi's, and his average is up to .326.

Pujols 0-3 and sitting at .320, but it is only in the 6th inning.

As a baseball fan, not only having someone with a chance at the Triple Crown but having 2 guys chasing each other for that accomplishment is incredibly exciting.

Well, I think the larger story here is the control of the game that Pujols brings. I've observed that Pujols is very conscious of what the team needs in any given at bat. I recall a highlight from last year that was telling. Pujols got about a 95MPH fast ball that was a good foot high above the strike zone. It wasn't a clutch situation but a run would have helped. He had a guy on second. He ended up taking the pitch and slapping a ground ball single between 1b and 2b like it was no problem.

And generally when I look a St Louis score and then see Pujols stat line it seems like he gets a lot of his stats when it matters. I don't see much of Pujols getting huge numbers at the tail end of a blow out or anything.

Votto is just a beast. He just doesn't give away at-bats. I can't imagine the focus and intensity it would take to do that 600 times in a season.