Cardinals’ Yadier Molina hits two home runs in historic day alongside longtime battery mate Adam Wainwright
Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina may go down in history as the most notable battery of all time.
On Thursday, the two St. Louis Cardinals tied the MLB record for most starts together as a battery.
Mickey Lolich pitched to Bill Freehan 324 times from 1963 to 1975. Now, it’s basically a lock that Yadi and Waino will break the record next week with their 325th start together.
Earlier this year, the duo set the MLB record for most games won by a team with the same starting battery, winning for the 203rd time. That broke the record that had been set by Warren Spahn and Del Crandall of the then-Milwaukee Braves.
And because destiny seems to just follow baseball, Molina had to give a moment to remember on the historic day.
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The catcher has long been known for his phenomenal defense — he has nine Gold Glove Awards, which is the third-most by a catcher ever, and four Platinum Glove Awards.
But every now and then, the bat speaks.
A Silver Slugger winner in 2013, he’s hit 20-plus home runs just twice in his career, but on Thursday, he belted a two-run home run into the third deck of Busch Stadium, more so known as Big Mac Land in honor of Mark McGwire.
In his next at-bat, he went deep again to tie the game against the Washington Nationals at 4.
It was just the ninth time he hit multiple home runs in a game, and it was his first multi-home run game since April 17 of last year.
The Cardinals have a season full of potential historic achievements — Albert Pujols currently has 695 home runs, one behind Alex Rodriguez for the fourth-most in baseball history. Only three players have eclipsed the 700 mark: Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).
It is expected that all three players will retire at the end of the season. But they will likely be playing in the postseason and try to go out on top — the Cards lead the NL Central by 9.5 games, and their magic number to clinch a postseason spot is 17.
Wainwright struggled on Thursday, allowing nine hits and four runs in five innings of work.
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