Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols hit his 400th career home run in a wild 13-inning loss in Washington.  Of the 46 players in Major League history who’ve reached that milestone, only Ken Griffey Jr. and admitted steroid user Alex Rodriguez did it at a younger age than 30-year-old Pujols. While Griffey Jr. and A-Rod broke into the majors as teenagers, Pujols didn’t begin his big league career until he was 21.  Pujols getting to 400 home runs got a lot less hype than A-Rod (finally) hitting his 600th earlier this month, but Pujols may very well end up with more career home runs than 35-year-old A-Rod.

Pujols hurt his right ankle during Thursday night’s game, but stayed in the game.  He said he’s not sure if he’ll be able to play Friday, but assuming he doesn’t miss much time, he’s on pace to hit another 10 home runs by the end of the season, his tenth in the Majors. Throughout his career, Pujols has been remarkably consistent — he’s never played fewer than 143 games in a season and his lowest home run total was 32.  This year, his 34 home runs lead the National League.

How high Pujols moves up on the all-time home run list may depend on how long he decides to play. Scenario one: following in his mentor Mark McGwire’s footsteps, Pujols retires in seven years at age 37.  Then in 2026, he becomes the Cardinals hitting coach and finally admits he did steroids.  In his first ten seasons, Pujols has averaged over 40 home runs per year.  If he keeps that up, he’d end up with 690 home runs in his final season in 2017.  A more realistic projection might be 32 home runs per year — at that rate, Pujols would get to 628 home runs by 2017.

Barring intensifying steroid speculation, Pujols will probably play past 37, especially if he has a chance at the all-time record.  If he can hit 40 home runs per year past 37, he’d get up to 770 by 2019.  If he hits 32 per year, it would take him till he’s 42 in 2022 to get 770.