Beltran runs, hits and plays rightfield

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- As simulated games go, the one Carlos Beltran participated in Thursday on Field 7 was a step above PlayStation.

Terry Collins pitched to him. Mookie Wilson hit him fly balls in rightfield, where Beltran warmed up by playing catch with one of J.P. Ricciardi's sons. And there's this: Mets PR guru Jay Horwitz, outfitted in khakis, served as a pinch runner and scored from third on Beltran's make-believe single -- sliding into the plate.

Despite the whole fantasy- camp feel, the late-morning simulation did yield some positive results for Beltran, who gave his arthritic knees their most serious test since he arrived here five weeks ago.

Beltran bolted from the batter's box on hits, ran hard into second on pretend doubles and even chased fly balls without hesitation. Throughout the drills, Collins barked at him from the mound, and Beltran responded with a full-out effort. "That's 100 percent rightthere," Beltran said. "I mean, I'm not going to get faster than that. I gave everything I had. I didn't want to leave anything in the tank, so I let everything go. Thank God I don't feel anything and hopefully [Friday] I'll wake up feeling good."

If that's the case, the Mets will have Beltran take some at-bats in a morning minor-league game, with maybe a simulation to follow. After that, Collins would like to get him another appearance in the minors Saturday and a Grapefruit League game next week. Collins sees him in the Opening Day lineup -- as of now. "I absolutely can, yeah," he said. "There's no question about it. I think we're in a good spot."

Then again, Beltran's status seems to change every day, and it was just 24 hours earlier that the Mets grew impatient with Beltran's methodical rehab schedule, and told him as much during Wednesday's meeting in the manager's office. Compiling at-bats in minor-league games was not enough to get Beltran ready for Opening Day, so they decided to alter that plan for Thursday's activities.

General manager Sandy Alderson still is evaluating Beltran on a day-to-day basis. It's not what he anticipated when this process began a month earlier. "I think the pace is a little more deliberate," he said. "Certainly coming into spring, at the outset, it was who's going to play center, who's going to play right. We got that taken care of pretty quickly. Since then, it's all been a little unpredictable. In a strict sense, in a larger sense, should we be surprised there are these injuries? Probably not."

A setback or two should have been expected with Beltran's fragile knees. His most recent problem involved tendinitis of the left knee, which surfaced the day after his only Grapefruit League game March 6, and he received a cortisone shot last Friday.

That injection has allowed Beltran to move forward in his recovery, but there's no evidence to suggest the arthritis will dissipate enough to keep him active on a consistent basis. But Beltran will settle for a pain-free afternoon in the field, and he looked ready to play Thursday during his limited drills. For a day, at least, he answered some important questions in his own mind.

"Right now they are," he said. "But at the same time, I need to play in a full game, game-speed . . . There's also a lot of things involved there. Here we control a little bit of the movements of what we want to do. But in the game, you don't control anything -- you react to the play.

"I'm looking forward to that aspect of playing in games."