Pujols, 38, would finish the season with a .245 batting average, 19 home runs, and a .289 on-base percentage. His 2017 and 2018 seasons were the first times in his 18-year career in which he performed below the league average, according to the OPS+ statistic.
Pujols had surgery on the same knee after the 2012 season, his first with the Angels. He had plantar fasciitis in his left foot in 2013, an injury that cost him the final two months of that season but resolved without surgery on his right foot after the 2015 and 2016 seasons.