MLB

Beltran is working hard to return ‘soon’ to Mets

PORT ST. LUCIE — The swing looks like it never took an unwanted vacation: still short, still powerful, still capable of driving a ball back through the box with such force it nearly separates the head of a minor league pitcher named Guillaume Leduc from his shoulders.

The upper body looks like something out of a P90X infomercial.

It’s only when Carlos Beltran starts to run that you’re forced to remember that it’s been close to a year since we have seen him playing as we remember him — with the kind of uncommon grace, speed and strength that made him easily the most gifted every-day player in the franchise’s history.

“In your mind,” Beltran said yesterday, “you know what your body is capable of. It’s trying to convince the body that’s the hard part. It isn’t easy being patient, because you want to play so badly.”

He was sweating in the searing Treasure Coast sun, sitting just outside the clubhouse at the Mets’ minor league facility, another extended-spring training game behind him, five more at-bats, four more well-struck baseballs, one half-speed power jog from first to home, the legs scoring on muscle memory on a double in the gap.

“Playing against these kids is a challenge enough,” he said.

“But to go from here to the majors,” he was asked, “is like going zero to 60, right?”

“Zero to a 100,” he said, laughing.

Beltran hadn’t yet heard about Jerry Manuel’s was-he-joking-or-wasn’t-he plea. The Mets manager, upon hearing of a Beltran home run Friday morning, declared Friday night: “I just think this is a good time to break him in,” using next weekend’s dates at Yankee Stadium as his own target date.

Beltran smiled.

“That would be great,” he said, but absently rubbing his right knee, a signal that next weekend is being a little too ambitious. “It kills me to miss a big series like that.”

In truth, the past 12 months have been a silent killer to Beltran, who will never be confused with Nick Swisher as an on-field extrovert but whose passions for the game burn as brightly as anyone’s. The knee hurt most of that time, of course. But so did the notion that he hadn’t done everything possible to get healthy. Or, worse, that he didn’t want to.

“I look at what Jose [Reyes] went through,” Beltran said. “When he came back, he so badly wanted to be the player he knew he can be, and when it wasn’t there he suffered. Maybe in a different city, with different expectations on the teams, with less passion from the fans, you can come back, struggle, and nobody notices or cares. But not in New York. And not with a team like ours, one we all believe can win a lot of games.

“I know I won’t come back and immediately go 4-for-4 every day with two bombs a day,” Beltran said. “But I do have to be at a level where I can contribute, because the guys up there now are fighting every day and doing a great job. You have to be able to compete or else you don’t belong with guys like Angel [Pagan] and Jeff [Francoeur] and everyone else.”

He can’t declare a return date, because he knows better than to defy the body’s own healing schedule. He felt fine during his September cameo, for instance, but “the knee just never got better like it should have,” which is why he had it operated on. Now, against these low-minor leaguers, he is trying to replicate baseball, swinging at bad pitches if he needs to just to experience contact again. This week he plans on refining the work more. After that?

“After that,” he said, “I hope.”

Hope is a good thing, especially now that the knee — “Thank God,” he says — is pain-free. He will rest today, play again tomorrow, maybe start running in fourth gear soon, then fifth. He watches the Mets on his computer and on his cell phone, likes what he sees. And doing that can try his patience.

“Soon,” he says. “I’ll be there soon. You can believe that, because I believe that.”

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com