Before Friday night’s contest against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Carlos Beltran had four RBI in 21 games played as a Giant. On Friday night, Beltran had three more after a 4-for-4 performance in which he was a double shy of hitting for the cycle.
Though Beltran has hit well as a Giant overall, with a .296 batting average, prior to Friday’s game against Arizona he had not produced with runners in scoring position, a scenario all to infrequent for the lowest-scoring team in all of baseball.
Giants fans, and perhaps even Giants management, began wondering whether Carlos Beltran was a bad investment, and whether giving up San Francisco’s top pitching prospect, Zack Wheeler, was actually a poor decision given the wrist problems and lack of run production from Beltran.
Suddenly, Beltran is the toast of San Francisco, single-handedly crushing the Diamondbacks in the opening game of the most important series of the season for his new club, and sending Arizona to its first loss in nearly two weeks.
Beltran has appeared, on the surface, as a very reserved an unemotional ballplayer since joining the defending world champs, and when he’s failed to come through in the clutch for a hopelessly unproductive offense, his lack of outward passion stood out and was very likely deemed as un-Giant.
After all, the Giants are a club that thrives on emotional fire, enjoying the “torture” of living on the edge in close games that require late-inning heroics, and taking a pennant race right down to the wire.
Carlos Beltran is a professional who’s been around the block a time or two, and his reservedness and calm is part of his own brand of baseball swagger.
The Giants witnessed first-hand Friday night what this quiet, visibly unemotional cleanup hitter was capable of.
As his towering drive into left center field descended from the fog that was rolling into AT&T Park, Carlos Beltran had officially arrived in San Francisco, leading his new club to a victory over the first-place Diamondbacks, and doing it with bravado.
It remains to be seen whether Beltran’s awakening will lead to a sustained hot streak through September, and it remains to be seen how many games will be relevant for the Giants pending the outcome of the remainder of their series with the Diamondbacks.
But Carlos Beltran put on a show for the hometown San Francisco fans on Friday, and he went from zero to hero, if for just a night.
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