Mets 4, Cardinals 2 - Nearing the End of the Most Complicated Baseball Relationship of My Life

After a deflating weekend against the series, and a completely flat game against the Marlins, the Mets finally got Jose Reyes back from the DL, (he promptly picked up where he left off collecting another multi-hit game) and Carlos Beltran back from his brief bout with the flu. The team, which had been in an offensive funk, with the exception of Saturday's 11-2 clouting of the Phils, woke up, led by Beltran's three hits, but it was a bittersweet night for me as I realized that Beltran could be gone just as quickly as he returned.  

I've written before about the baseball gods toying with my emotions, and an agonizing sequence of events in my life that all started out with a happy occasion.  I proposed to my girlfriend in May of 2008 and, shortly thereafter, left my job and lifelong home in the New York metropolitan area to move to her location in hated Philadelphia. As some kind of penance for an sin of mine long forgotten, I happened to arrive just in time to watch the Mets be eliminated from postseason contention on the last day of the season and the Phillies storm through the playoffs on their way to a World Series title.  

As the years have gone on and the Phillies have coasted to four straight division titles (with a fifth all but sewn up at this point), and the Mets have been cursed with a slew of injuries, bad personnel decisions, and generic ineptitude, my emotions have cooled from rage ("Urgh, how could this be happening, it's like I'm in a Hell for one," to a kind of warped amusement, where I'm almost morbidly curious to see how long this can go on.  

It was in that spirit that I found myself at a beach house in Wildwood over the past weekend staying with my in-laws, eight Phillies fans strong with only myself waving the blue and orange banner.  The Mets had gotten trounced on Friday night, R.A. Dickey had gotten knocked around, and the offense was held in check by the immortal Vance Worley.  With Pelfrey slated to pitch on Sunday, Saturday was a must-win game.

Win they would, with the legendary Scott Hairston filling in for Beltran with three hits, a homer, and 5 RBI and the Mets offense doing what they do best, which is embarrassing Cole Hamels more than he is used to.  

I watched a majority of the game by myself, which was unfortunate because I was hoping to replicate my father-in-law's methodical, rage-inducing slow clap, which he likes to pull out whenever we are watching Phillies-Mets games together.  My wife assures me that he does this regardless of who the Phillies are playing so maybe I am hypersensitive, but it is positively incendiary all the same, and I was looking forward to turning the tables somewhat.  Despite not being able to, I had a wonderful time watching the game, with one notable exception.  

Shortly after Hairston's home run gave the Mets an 11-2 lead, the clueless Fox announcers, who had clearly done no preparation whatsoever, opined on their surprise that the Mets were looking so offensively robust.  Never mind the fact that a cursory glance over their stats this season would show that they are among the league leaders in OBP and batting average, this was clearly an unexpected offensive explosion! National boob Mark Grace went one step further, proclaiming that it was all because "Carlos Beltran couldn't answer the bell and Scott Hairston stepped up."

Goddammit.  

I usually don't let national announcers get to me, since I'm used to them showing up on the day of a game, making some observations that even the most casual of fans has already heard four or five times, and leave town shortly after the last pitch.  This, however, really got to me.  

Beltran entered this season with questionable knees (residual worries about the surgery he had at the beginning of 2010 that kept him out until July) and, for many Mets fans who anticipated the 2011 season to be nothing more than a showcase to see what kind of team Sandy Alderson had to build on, was considered as good as gone.  His expensive contract would come off the books, and the Mets would be able to get younger and healthier in the outfield.  

All Beltran did was give up his center field position, knowing that the younger, faster Angel Pagan was more suited for the role, and say the right things. He loved playing in New York, he was just going to go out and do his best, and whatever happened would happen.  

What's happened has been that despite the preseason worries about his knees, Beltran leads the team in games played, home runs, and RBI, and has adapted seamlessly to his new position in right field (no easy feat in Citi Field, considering that the wacky architecture of the outfield can make playing a ball off the wall into a pinball game).  He has made himself a valuable part of the clubhouse, and, perhaps more important for the team's future, a valuable trade chip as the July 31st deadline approaches.  Terry Collins told him that he shouldn't come to the clubhouse and get other players sick.  All of this, and Mark Grace says that he couldn't answer the bell.  

It's just the latest in what's been a truly bizarre seven years since the Mets outbid the pack and picked up Beltran in the offseason between the 2004 and 2005 seasons.  On a team where David Wright is seen as an upstanding stalwart, a media darling who says all of the right things and can't hide his love for the franchise, and Jose Reyes is seen as an enthusiastic, energetic sparkplug whom every teammate says has an infectious passion for the game, Beltran has gone through so many ups and downs since he became a Met.  He's been called selfish, a baby, brittle, ornery, bitter, and a choke artist, but was probably cheered loudest of all the Mets during the 2006 team's season, which ended with the bat on his shoulder and the fans booing.  The Mets haven't been in the playoffs since.  

After he carried the Astros to the World Series in a postseason that an agent dreams of, as Mets fans applauded his signing and he stood at the Shea Stadium podium and said that this was "The new Mets", there was a feeling around the team that they were relevant again, a feeling that hadn't existed since their improbable run to the 2000 World Series.  

That feeling quickly soured as Beltran had a miserable 2005 season, hitting just 15 home runs and stealing 17 bases.  I'll admit it, I wasn't fond of him. He was booed, slammed, and labeled an overpaid bust, and the animosity became so harsh that, after homering early in the 2006 season with the fans cheering for a curtain call, he had to be coaxed out of the dugout by Julio Franco.  Others saw this as petty.  I loved it.  This guy was a person and felt under appreciated.  One home run and now you love me?  It was the embodiment of the New York fishbowl.  He went on to slug 41 homers and drive in 116 as the Mets won the division for the first time in 18 years.  

He homered three times during the postseason, and drove in five.  The Mets, picked by so many to steamroll their way to the World Series, didn't have as easy a road as people thought, and what's been forgotten among many is that they were without two of their best pitchers for those playoffs, as Orlando Hernandez and Pedro Martinez were both sidelined with injuries.  Nobody remembers that, because all they see is this.  

I have to watch.  I have to remember.  

As I stood in the upper deck of Shea Stadium and watched that pitch drop in, watched the ump's hand move, I turned immediately, punched the wall, and walked down the ramp into the concourse.  I'm not proud.  I was numb.  I couldn't believe it.  I was dumbfounded.  And I was pissed.  How could you not swing.  How could you go down like that, YOU DIDN'T EVEN FIGHT. 

It was days before I watched a replay.  When I finally got around to it, I couldn't help it.  It was a perfect pitch.  It was the pitch Adam Wainwright will be remembered for long after his career is over, and all of the credit had to go to him.  I could not be mad.  I honestly believe that 99% of all Major Leaguers would have fallen victim to that pitch.  

Beltran had great 2007 and 2008 seasons, but those are waved away because of the Mets' late-season collapses.  He's so good in the outfield that he's underappreciated, gliding to make simple catches on the run that other outfielders would have to dive for.  He was off to a great start in 2009, but fell victim to the injury plague that claimed seemingly every team member that season.  2010 was abbreviated for the already-mentioned surgery.  When he did get hurt, he would always take much longer to come back than was predicted.  He would be scratched from games, and never seemed to be completely healthy, and estimated his health levels at strange percentages.  80%, 90%, etc.  

Injury-prone.  Superstar. Moody. Five-tool.  Effortless.  Bitter.  Introverted.  Leader.  It all applies.  They're all accurate to describe periods of this complicated player's time with the Mets.  A time that looks like it's pretty much over.  

I have a feeling that when Beltran goes, it will be some time before the Mets fans, beat writers, and critics can start to appreciate what they had.  And it's a real shame.  Many writers have said that Beltran's contract was a bad one.  What do you think?  

7 years.  862 games.  545 runs.  148 RBI.  100 steals  .281 BA. .368 OBP.  3 Gold Gloves.


I hope that if/when Beltran is traded, he winds up on a good team with a chance to win the World Series.  And I know that I'll be cheering for him during the postseason.  


Just, please God, don't let it be the Phillies.