BOSTON — Sixteen years, and then two innings.
A lifetime of just-misses. And a brilliant non-miss does him in.
Do the baseball gods just not want Carlos Beltran to be happy in late October?
Perhaps there is a pocket of imbecilic Mets fans reveling in Beltran’s misfortune Wednesday night. For the bulk of us who reside in a world run by logic, however, there is compassion for a guy who played so long and so well to reach his first World Series, only to leave Game 1 with a right rib injury enough to warrant a trip to an area hospital — and put his availability and effectiveness for the rest of the week in question.
“He’s a huge player for our team,” said Adam Wainwright, the Cardinals’ starting and losing pitcher as the Red Sox pummeled St. Louis, 8-1 at Fenway Park. “We all know that. Everybody knows that. … Of course, to lose Carlos hurts.”
Photo: @CrashburnAlley
The 36-year-old Beltran had an X-ray and CT scan done at a local hospital (reportedly Massachusetts General) and both came back negative. That’s good news for him and the Cardinals, yet there are no guarantees concerning his contributions for the rest of this season.
For Thursday’s Game 2, “It’ll probably be a game-time decision,” St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak said. A team media relations official said Beltran was in the visiting clubhouse after the game but wouldn’t be speaking with the media until Thursday.
“I think he’s OK,” Wainwright said.
With the Cardinals quickly humbled by both Beltran’s early departure and overall terrible team defense (three errors), this sure felt a lot like the 2004 and 2007 Fall Classics, both of which the Red Sox swept (over the Cardinals in ’04 and the Rockies in ’07) to a parade. Shoot, with ring-owning Sawx alumnus like Pedro Martinez, Kevin Millar, Mike Timlin, Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield enjoying the festivities from luxury suites, you’d be excused for getting confused exactly what year we were in.
Fittingly, it was David Ortiz — trying to become the first Red Sox player to win three championships with the club since Babe Ruth and four others joined that club in 1918 (and Harry Hooper and Heinie Wagner won their fourth American League Boston crowns) — who inadvertently removed Beltran from the game when he smoked a would-be grand slam toward the right-field bullpen in the bottom of the second. It reminded us eerily of Ortiz’s granny in the eighth inning of American League Championship Series Game 2, when Tigers right fielder Torii Hunter chased valiantly after it and toppled over the wall, his legs forming a “V” to balance the two arms raised high by a Boston police officer stationed in the pen.
Where Hunter failed, however, Beltran — whose Royals regularly battled Hunter’s and Ortiz’s Twins in the late 1990s and early 2000s — succeeded, reaching over the wall to grab Ortiz’s blast and pulling his glove back into the field of play. Phenomenal catch. David Ross tagged up from third and scored, and that the Red Sox increased their lead to 5-0 had to feel like a moral triumph, given that it could have been 8-0 if not for Beltran.
Nevertheless, Beltran instantly began clutching at his side and looked out of breath. He hung around for the final out of the inning, and Jon Jay then took over center field in the third, with starting center fielder Shane Robinson sliding over to Beltran’s spot in right field.
As if Beltran hadn’t suffered enough through the years for being on the losing side three times in a National League Championship Series Game 7 — with the Astros in 2004, with the Mets in 2006 and with the Cardinals last year — now he couldn’t even make it until his Fall Classic debut became an official game.
It’s the middle of that three-pack, of course, we remember most of all, as Beltran committed the sin of looking at a beautiful Wainwright curveball to send the Mets home with the tying and winning runs on base. If you’re still angry about this, you need to let it go. The ’06 Mets wouldn’t have sniffed an NLCS Game 7 without the vast contributions of Beltran to get to that point. Then he contributed plenty more value in his remaining five years with the club.
He does seem to have some sort of hex on him, though, doesn’t he? It’s a cruel fate, and you can’t help but hope that such a long wait doesn’t result in such a short World Series gig. That he will come back and look something like the Beltran who has been such a Cardinals asset for two seasons.