Amid the joyous news that we will not have to stomach Larry Jones in the playoffs, we may have missed the important subtext that we will indeed get to watch Albert Pujols.

Pujols’ streak of batting .300 with 30 home runs and 100 RBI ended this year when he hit .299 and drove in 99 runs. Of course, the .300-30-100 thing is really just a statistical novelty, and falling an RBI single short of that mark doesn’t mean Pujols is much less awesome.

After a rough start to the season, Pujols finished with a 150 OPS+ — not quite up to his career standard of 170 but still good for eighth best in the league. From June 1 through the end of the regular season, Pujols posted a .997 OPS. He has a 1.009 OPS in the postseason because he’s Albert Pujols.

The Cardinals’ NLDS matchup with the Phillies provides the stage for a possible playoff rematch between Pujols and Brad Lidge. For some inexplicable reason I can’t find video of Pujols’ 2005 NLCS home run off Lidge, which should be like the main thing on the Internet.