BOSTON — It felt like the moment in “The Karate Kid” when the tournament announcer shouts, “Daniel LaRusso is gonna fight!” Word spread at about 5:30 Thursday afternoon that Carlos Beltran, brought down in his first career World Series game by a nasty collision with Fenway Park’s right field wall that saddled him with a right rib injury, would return to the Cardinals’ starting lineup — playing right field and hitting second — for Game 2.
As it turned out, Beltran didn’t quite follow the lead of the Ralph Macchio character as he failed dominate this night’s proceedings. But he showed up for work and delivered a critical blow in the Cardinals’ stunning, come-from-behind, 4-2 victory over the Red Sox, and we suddenly have ourselves a Series, tied at 1-1, with Beltran seemingly good to go following his Game 1 scare.
Soft, like some foolish New York baseball fans and observers seem to think? Not Beltran, who admitted to receiving an injection of the anti-inflammatory Toradol before the game and contributed a pair of singles, the latter driving home St. Louis’ final run of the night.
“Carlos is such a pro, you know?” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “He knows how to handle it when he doesn’t feel completely a hundred percent, which he probably hasn’t felt since February. But he’s the kind of guy that knows how to make the best of what he has.”
“When I left the ballpark [Wednesday], I had very little hope that I was going to be in the lineup with the way I felt,” Beltran said. “When I woke up, I woke up feeling a little better. And I came to the ballpark, talked to the trainer. I was able to get treatment and talk to the doctors, and find a way to try anything I could try just to go out there and feel no pain.”
The Toradol, Beltran said, blocks the pain for five or six hours, so he anticipated waking up feeling sore on Friday. He’s hoping the day off, with Game 3 set for Saturday at Busch Stadium, will increase his comfort level.
Against Cardinals stud rookie pitcher Michael Wacha, who raised his postseason record to 4-0 with his impressive, six-inning, two-run showing, as well as two relievers, the Red Sox didn’t hit a single ball to right field, allowing Beltran to chillax on defense. On offense, he went 2-for-4. Most important, he followed the game’s most important play — an ultra-wacky, two-error, two-run sequence that began with a Matt Carpenter sacrifice fly and catapulted the Cardinals from down, 2-1, to up, 3-2 — with a single to right that brought home David Descalso from third base with an important insurance run. Beltran also singled in his first at-bat, in the first inning.
During pregame batting practice in Fenway’s indoor batting cage, “I felt like I was swinging the bat OK,” Beltran said. “Not good, but good enough to be able to go out there and be with the guys.”
It’s amazing how many Mets fans still hold negative sentiment toward Beltran, even though he easily ranks among the 10 best position players in their history. I wrote a column for Thursday’s Post expressing compassion for him and mentioning that some imbecilic Mets fans might actually revel in his misfortune. I wondered whether that was too harsh — until I linked to the column on Twitter and many Mets fans made it clear they didn’t feel bad for him even a little.
Folks still obsess over Adam Wainwright’s nasty curveball that ended the 2006 National League Championship Series, which of course overlooks the reality the Mets would have never been so close to victory if not for Beltran’s contributions in that same series. And then there are his injuries. After playing in 140-plus games in each of his first four seasons as a Met (2005 through 2008), right knee problems limited him to 81 games in 2009 and then 64 in 2010.
Those absences, particularly the one in the first half of 2010, created tension with Mets ownership and management. Yet we know now just how awful the team culture was concerning medical care. Prevention and logic didn’t rule the day. That he worked his way back to relatively good health and put together a terrific first half of the 2011 campaign, enabling first-year Mets general manager Sandy Alderson to get Zack Wheeler as the trade return from San Francisco, served as a terrific goodbye present to a crowd that underappreciated him.
So now we see him on the national stage, grinding his way back onto the field, helping his Cardinals gain the home field advantage. It’s one more reason to admire him, one more loss for his irrational critics.