QUESTION: Albert Pujols has his batting average back to .300, he’s already hit 36 home runs and is sitting just five RBI short of 100 ... meaning he’s knocking at the door of going .300/30/100 for the 11th consecutive season. Are you surprised Pujols has those numbers within reach as the season winds down given his uncharacteristically slow start to the season?

RICK HUMMEL

After 11 seasons, we really shouldn’t be surprised at anything Albert Pujols does offensively. But to get his batting average to .300 has been a fairly remarkable feat. At about the same time in early August, he and Ichiro Suzuki, who also had had 10 straight .300 seasons, both were hitting in the .270s. Ichiro still is in the .270s.

DERRICK GOOLD

Nope. Not in the slightest. Pujols has what I believe they call a “track record” and when compared to a whole decade of metronome-like production a single month or even two months is a downright puny sample size. Opportunity was the only uncertainty. Would he get enough at-bats to raise his average? Would he get enough ABs with runners on to drive them in? Or would the walks – intentional or otherwise – derail his return to the .300-30-100 realm? No, the only surprise is that he has received those chances, and that his wrist injury wasn’t as catastrophic as originally advertised and didn’t wipe out his chances at a uniform baseball card entirely.

BRYAN BURWELL

How could anyone be surprised by something Pujols has established as a career norm? For more than a decade he has created a standard and over the course of a lengthy 162-game season. I was fairly confident he could do it again despite the slow start. It speaks of his rare talent that we might consider that he’ll finish this season somewhere around .305, 40 hr and 105 RBI.

JEFF GORDON

I’m never surprised by Albert. After 10 seasons of superhuman production, we all knew he was capable of digging out. With time running out to put up numbers in this contract drive, he finally locked in and began hitting like his usual self. Just as he drove down his potential dollar value earlier this season, he is driving it back up now with the whole baseball world watching this team’s charge.