“Interesting that Beltran admitted to thinking about his past failure and wanting to overcome it.”

Describing it as failure, implies that it was fair for us to expect Beltran to come up with a hit there.

Understand that even if he swings, it will only result in a hit 1/3 of the time AT BEST, allowing for normal variance. Add to the fact that it was a hellacious pitch, and you should probably lower that to 1/8, if not 1/10.

The mad dog wrote a book called “The Greatest Sports Arguments”, or something like that. One of the debates is, “Who would you want at the plate if you needed a home run to win the game?” His choice, Sammy Sosa. Why?

Sosa was a top 10 position player of all time, enhanced or not. However, he’s certainly not one of the best “pure hitters” of all time. He wasn’t even the most prolific HR hitter. He chose Sosa for his FLAW as a hitter as opposed to his STRENGTH as a HR hitter.

McGwire and Bonds were too good for that situation, because they would take a walk. They were TRAINED that way, and it is undoubtedly the best approach. IN that spot though, Mad Dog wants a guy who will expand the zone and still offer a good shot at a HR, even if that shot was lowered to less than 5%.

This was Beltran’s problem. He was too good a hitter to hack at that pitch.

Wainwright made a hellacious pitch. Even with 10 swings at that pitch (keep in mind you also have to look out for his mid 90s heat, at least as a reliever, and his change up), and you might get a hit 1 time. Beltran took a NASTY pitch, that isn’t even called for a strike by all major league umpires (but admittedly is a strike by definition), and got called out.

To hold Beltran accountable there is being extremely unfair. Even if you expand your strike zone, that pitch was nasty enough that you STILL might not swing. That pitch almost literally broke in from the bleachers.

Wainwright threw a wicked curve on the paint. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap. To condemn Beltran for taking that pitch, would be asking him to become Mike Cameron as a player. If you love him for how great he is, you tip your cap to Wainwright and move on.

..I do agree that him acknowledging that it has an impact on his approach is admirable.

Beltran has repeatedly shown himself to be a man of class, dignity and a very high baseball IQ. While his comment is somewhat admirable in this day and age, it does not surprise me in the least coming from a guy like Beltran.

…more generlizations, lacking proof.

Perhaps you need him to grind his teeth and throw some batting helmets around to know he isn’t “loafing it”.

Just to clue you into how far off the mark you are, he’s performing well beyond his contract. By MLB standards, he has been a smashing success.

You measure his performance against the MLB standard, and the Mets are getting a BARGAIN with Beltran. I know, 115 is a relatively a big number, so if he isn’t hitting 125 HRs and batting .415, I could see how the casual fan would be disappointed.

You oughta know though, that when you post comments like this, you’re only revealing yourself to be a person that is completely out of touch.

You have arguably the game’s best all around player in your own backyard, and you have no idea.