Wright and Beltran Lead Mets to Win the First West Coast Series
Wendy AdairAnalyst IMay 17, 2009
The Mets are going for a four-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants tonight with Mike Pelfrey being opposed by Matt Cain.
It certainly has been an eventful week for the Mets who have seen Carlos Delgado put on the DL yesterday, which puts a strain on the remainder of the middle lineup as well as a need for a first baseman.
Jose Reyes has not played since Wednesday afternoon with a stiff calf muscle that started in New York but was made worse by the cross-country trip on Wednesday evening.
Carlos Beltran and David Wright, along with Gary Sheffield, have been leading the Mets on the field, combining their gap-hitting power and speed on the bases.
Jerry Manuel has been full of praise for Wright and Beltran this weekend for the way they have both stepped up and led the Mets with two of the core members unable to play.
With their efforts, the Mets have stolen over a dozen bases in this series, seven of them in the first game.
AT&T Park is a pitcher-friendly park like CitiField and has incredible gap depths and angles which makes home run hitting difficult but not impossible.
Both Beltran and Wright are proven sluggers, but they both realize that they need to utilize the gaps in order to have the extra base hits necessary for clutch hitting, especially later in the game.
Wright himself has five stolen bases, four of them on Thursday night. He has also collected three hits in each of the first three games, driving in at least three runs a game and has worked two walks.
They have also been very aggressive on the base paths by taking the extra base and moving up to put themselves in excellent scoring position.
The absence of Carlos Delgado is expected to be lengthy and Angel Pagan has been recalled from Buffalo to take his roster spot with Fernando Tatis seeing most of the action at first base for the foreseeable future.
Jose Reyes is expected back in the lineup within the next two days, but even when he does return, he will not be running at full capacity for a few days.
After tonight, the Mets head south to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers, a team that Wright has handled well his entire career, so he is not expected to cool down his torrid stretch of hitting .448 during his last 12 games.