A Tale of Two Carlos's

After having managed two wins rather handily against an erstwhile perennial-playoffs Yankees team, Willie Randolph will take his beginning-to-be-performing Mets team into Atlanta this afternoon, no doubt hoping for a continuation of some hot hitting from his two Carlos's, Delgado and Beltran.

When these two buddies from Puerto Rico are hitting, there isn't too much else that has to go right, or Wright even. In fact, the Mets fortunes closely reflect those of its two big men, for better and worse. And, if motivation, borne of a remarkably uneven past, can inspire a better performance, these two should shine from now until October.

Any Mets fan over the age of ten can still vividly recall the October of two season ago, Carlos Beltran at the plate, watching strike three bend right-to-left over the plate, thus ending their 2006 season. But those fans with a longer memory may also recall Beltran's eight home runs in the 2004 playoffs.

On October 15, 2006, NY Times writer Lee Jenkins opined that "The Mets....evened the NLCS at two games apiece because Delgado made it so. Every ball he hits seems to be worth chasing." Upon checking how Delgado did in Game 7 of that series, I see the Cards walked him three times. That Wright, following Delgado in the lineup, only went 1-4 that day is probably better forgotten.

But the stories of these two goes well beyond 2006, tales of woe mostly. For example, Delgado began his career with the Toronto Blue Jays, who won the World Series in both 1992 and 1993 but in that 1993 season, Delgado only played two games. Talk about bad luck, the 1994 World Series was cancelled entirely.

Delgado didn't become a regular for Toronto until 1996 and from 1997 to 2006, Carlos had ten consecutive seasons of 30 or more home runs, and in the year 2000, he hit an incredible .344 with 41 home runs while garnering enough MVP votes to finish fourth to a fellow named Giambi. But Toronto wasn't in contention during those years.

In 2005, Delgado got his big break, finally hot on the trail of a Championship with the Florida Marlins, who won it all in 2003 over the Yankees. But the Marlins finished only 83-79 in 2005 despite Carlos’s .301 BA and 33 home runs.

The year 2006 was the Marlins fire-sale year, or one of them anyway, and the Mets acquired Carlos’s huge contract from the Fish and got 7 million back in the bargain. But, as good as Delgado was in the 2006 NLCS, Heilman served up that costly two-run homer and Wainwright curled in that third strike to Beltran and, poof, another year was wasted.

Beltran shares a similar baseball heritage, aside from any ties to Puerto Rico. Beltran started out with the Kansas City Royals and had consecutive 100-rbi years from 2001-2003. Kansas City, of course, never sniffed anything close to a pennant in those years.

In 2004, however, Beltran got his big break, getting traded to the Houston Astros, but wound up losing a tense NLCS to the Cards. He was awesome in that year though, banging out 15 homers and 51 ribbies for the Royals and 23 dingers and another 53 ribbies for the Astros.

Beltran was also the star of that year’s playoffs, of course, with his 8 playoff dingers. The Mets moved in with a truckload of money and Carlos became a Met. Carlos had a horrible (for him) 2005 Mets inaugural though, with high expectations doing him in. Carlos the Younger hit only 16 HR’s and 78 ribbies.

All of which, of course, brings us to the heart-breaker of 2006. And then the meltdown of 2007. Mets fans can’t really say which year hurts more, most would say 2007, but some of those may have missed that 2006 called strike three.

In any event, Beltran wore the horns in 2006 and Delgado certainly at least shared a pair with his sorry 2007 of .258 with just 24 home runs. Carlos the Elder had a lot of company, of course, and analysts are still debating who’s more to blame for 2007.

When there are so many candidates for the horns, it’s only natural to point towards the manager, of course. And Mets fans did. And they have continued their pointing into 2008. And who can really blame them?

As this is written, the Mets continue their foibles against the Braves, making Tom Glavine the reincarnation of, well, Tom Glavine. They’re down 3-1 in the fifth and John Maine is now out of the game.

Both Carlos’s have already had their share of bad luck in this game, and, one wonders, is this their fate, to be remarkably talented but unfulfilled millionaires? There have certainly been sadder tales in the history of the major leagues. Don Mattingly, Ernie Banks, and a host of others never won the big one.

Despite what my head keeps telling me, my heart is really with these two. They are, by all accounts, remarkably nice people, but people prone to long streaks of good and bad, driving their fans and their manager to distraction, at least, and in the manager’s case, perhaps to another city.

Another common thing about these two, though, is that there is a LOT of history there. Can two old war-horses such as these really muster up the enthusiasm and effort required to produce in each and every game? Having just watched Beltran bounce out weakly to shortstop on a ball about a foot off the plate, I have to wonder, not that he hasn’t done that a thousand times before.

Much as Jason Kidd played a magnificent fourth quarter and just survived the first three, so do Carlos and Carlos plod through the season and turn it on for the Yankees, or to keep Willie in the dugout for the rest of the season.

This Braves game seems to accentuate the point. Aaah, it’s a double-header, maybe they’re saving it for Game Two.