The inimitable Ralph Kiner once said the great thing about baseball was that you never know what's going on.
That was an apt quote for Thursday's game between the Rockies and Mets. It took 26 hours from the original start time to actually see a first pitch and the Mets were playing a lineup that seemed like something you'd see in Port St. Lucie in the middle of March.
Ike Davis is on the disabled list and David Wright got the night off to rest his ailing back and bat, leaving the Mets with a crew that didn't figure to light up the scoreboard at Coors Field. But, once again, you never know what's going on in baseball.
Carlos Beltran homered three times, drove in six runs and the Mets powered their way to a 9-5 win over the Rockies. That's two straight wins, a series win and a night that no one is going to forget anytime soon.
Beltran has been a pleasant surprise all season, but his effort on Thursday night lifted his performance to another level. He homered twice from the left side, drove balls out to all three parts of the outfield and generally looked like anything but a player that could be hated by large swaths of a fan base.
Alas, we know that's not the case. There is a vocal contingent of Mets fans who will never be convinced of anything other than Beltran's failure to be the player that they decided he was supposed to be when he arrived here in 2005.
The reason for this belief has never been particularly clear. Beltran's injuries were certainly frustrating and every player on the team was tainted by what happened in 2007 and 2008, but the vitriol for Beltran never fit with his actual production on the field.
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That makes the mind search for other reasons, mostly having to do with a personality that doesn't outwardly show much difference between winning or losing. He also never really lets anyone see him sweat, something that didn't win him many fans when he watched Adam Wainwright's curveball drop in for strike three to end the 2006 NLCS.
That group is never going to be placated, at least not until Beltran gets shipped to another team at some point in the not too distant future. Let's hope that their myopia allowed them to derive some pleasure from Beltran's gigantic Thursday night in Denver, however.
After all, there's not much point in being a fan if that doesn't make you smile.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
