June 6, 2011, feature on New York Mets' Carlos Beltran for Metro NYC Newspaper
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DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY IMAGES
The Mets start a 10-game road trip tomorrow in Milwaukee.
At least one member of the Mets’ staff likes Carlos Beltran. (Hint: It’s not Fred Wilpon.)
“I think it’s great. I really appreciate every time he asks me how I feel. He [knows] I didn’t have the spring training that everyone had,” Beltran said of first-year manager Terry Collins before the Mets’ 6-4 win over the Braves last night. “When I came back from the [knee] injury with Jerry [Manuel], we had a plan just to have a day off here and there. But Terry, it’s been a little different.”
It is a lot different from the lack of support shown from Wilpon, who bashed his slugger last month, saying Beltran, “65 to 70 percent of what he was” when the Mets signed him before the 2005 season. Collins just wants Beltran 100 percent healthy. He won't be until at least next week, though, after fouling a ball off his lower leg in the second inning last night.
Looks like Collins will have to do more daily check-ins with yet another bruised basher.
“I like it. As a manager, you have to communicate with your players,” said Beltran, who is hitting .333 with six RBIs in June. “He asks me, ‘How do you feel? How do you feel overall?’ and that’s a good thing.”
Until the series finale with Atlanta, Beltran had been the only reliable power hitter for Collins. Without third baseman David Wright and first baseman Ike Davis until at least July, the onus to produce offensively falls upon Beltran, Jose Reyes and Jason Bay. Reyes’ .335 batting average is fifth-best in the majors, while his 19 stolen bases and 39 runs also rank in the top 10.
What he is not — and never has been — though, is a nRBI threat. Reyes has 399 RBI in his career, an average of 44.3 per season. By comparison, he has averaged 74.7 runs scored per season. Reyes reaches base and puts himself in a position to score runs for a team whose 240 runs scored has them 15th in the sport.
Bay’s season-and-a-half long struggle to find a comfort zone has been well chronicled. The $16 million a year left fielder has a .216 batting average, .310 on-base percentage, .291 slugging percentage, .601 on-base and slugging percentage, six extra-base hits (four doubles, two homers) and 10 RBI in 37 games this season.
Perhaps the at-bat that has defined his tenure in Flushing occurred in Wednesday’s 9-3 loss to the Pirates. Bay slammed a 2-1, four-seam fastball to right center in the first inning with Angel Pagan standing on third. It appeared to be a home run off the bat. Then Citi Field’s mini-Grand Canyon dimensions came into play. The shot was not going over the wall. That became obvious. But it was going be an extra base hit and a RBI once it bounced off the warning track and the wall.
Then it wasn’t as Andrew McCutchen covered the distance and slid on one leg while making the catch to end the inning.
“‘Here we go, again,’” Bay said after the loss. “I hit it well and there was a big gap. As I’m running I’m thinking I have an extra-base hit and a RBI. I’m watching him close and I’m watching the ball, and before he even got there, the way things are going for me I kind of figured he was going to catch it. There was a sinking feeling. The whole thing is unfolding in front of me and I can kind of see everything colliding at once and when he slid, I was pretty sure he caught it.”
For as much of an offensive non-entity as the self-deprecating Bay has been, Beltran has been the polar opposite. He leads the team in home runs (nine) and RBIs (34) and his .284 batting average ranks third.
“As long as I continue to feel the way,” Beltran said over the weekend, perhaps cursing himself, "I feel I’m going to be out there."
Out there for who remains the question. If the myriad trade speculation that has hung over the team since spring training turns out to be well-founded, Beltran may not be a Met when Wright and Davis return. Beltran is in the last year of a seven-year, $119 million contract and a playoff contender could view the switch hitter as a missing piece into becoming a World Series contender.
http://www.metro.us/newyork/sports/article/880704--carlos-beltran-finally-finds-a-buddy--page0
posted by Denis P. Gorman at 6:09 PM
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