This isn’t important. Just interesting. And I happen to know it. Which is what a blog is about, right? Passing along random observations and stats, etc.

About homers and the 2009 season.

1.  Albert Pujols has not hit a home run since Sept. 9. Which may give some hope to Dodgers fans who 1) anticipate they will score very few runs against Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, etc., in the Divisional Series vs. St. Louis and 2) fear Albert Pujols will launch some bombs against Dodgers pitching.

Pujols is homerless in 78 at-bats since he went deep twice on Sept. 9. When we add in 11 walks he had in that period, that’s at least 89 homerless plate appearances — and actually a few more, if we bothered to look up sacrifice flies and hit-by-pitch.

(Pujols hit only one of his 47 homers against Dodgers pitchers. Actually he batted only .222 against the Dodgers in 27 at-bats, with four runs and only two RBI, apparently because the Dodgers just walked him a lot — seven times. His OBP against the Dodgers this year is .400. He had only six hits, two of them doubles and one the homer.)

2. Adam Dunn’s remarkable streak of consecutive seasons of 40 homers — not 39, not 41, 40 exactly — has ended at four straight.

Dunn hit 38 homers in 2009. So he got close. And perhaps could have hit 40 on the nose, again, but he had only one homer after Sept. 11 — in 63 at-bats and at least 76 plate appearances. (I didn’t check for HBP or sac flies.) He averaged a homer every 14 at-bats this season, so he should have hit four, not the one he actually hit, over those final 63 at-bats. (And he averaged a homer per 13 at-bats, through Sept.  11.)

Anyway I wonder if anyone ever has hit that many homers (40) and come up with that exact total four consecutive seasons. Lots of numbers in baseball history, but I’m guessing, no, no one has had four consecutive seasons of 40-40-40-40 or 42-42-42-42, etc.