Lennon: Beltran's route on Werth HR was painful to watch

Carlos Beltran not only has hurt the Mets since his return from the disabled list, he almost killed himself Sundayby crashing into the centerfield wall in the second inning.

Beltran was trying to track down Jayson Werth's long fly ball, and with his eyes locked on its flight, he never saw the chain-link fence until his face smacked into the semi-padded structure. As for the ball, it cleared the wall by only a few feet and looked to be within Beltran's reach.

The failed attempt was painful to watch, yet somehow, Beltran later insisted he was perfectly fine. Physically, that is.

Who knows where Beltran's head is at these days. That clumsy effort was shocking from a two-time Gold Glove centerfielder, even one who had missed most of last year and the first 3 1/2 months of this season with knee issues.

Even worse, Beltran later said he could have prevented the Werth homer that helped decide the Mets' 6-5 loss to the Phillies.

"I would have caught it if I didn't get stuck in the fence," he said. "I would have caught it."

That was of little consolation for the Mets, who had waited all this time for their $119-million savior to arrive only to see him have the exact opposite effect.

Beltran's struggles at the plate are understandable. But if his surgically scoped right knee is stable - as Beltran repeatedly has said it is - then he needs to be better at fielding his position.

Manager Jerry Manuel will not consider moving him to a corner spot, and Beltran said last week that he is not about to volunteer. Everyone can see he is not the same, at least not yet, but Manuel was surprised by Beltran's collision with the wall.

"Yeah, that was kind of an unusual sight for a centerfielder that plays every day to not have the bearing as to where you are," he said.

This was not a case of Jason Bay running full-speed into the bullpen fence at Dodger Stadium. That was an aggressive, all-or-nothing play. Bay did what he had to do make the catch - and that included suffering a concussion.

With Beltran, it was more like Centerfield 101. You've got to find the wall first in order to make the leaping attempt.

"I didn't know how close I was to the wall," he said, "and when I was about to jump, I just got stuck in the fence."

If the Mets are willing to cut Beltran some slack on the whole "run prevention" thing, then he needs to start doing a much better job of producing them.

Manuel thought about sitting Beltran on Sunday but said he was talked out of it, with the centerfielder telling him: "I feel good. I want to play. I need to push it. We've got to win games and I feel like I can be a big part of that."

But Beltran has been part of the problem rather than the solution. On Sunday, he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts before Manuel double-switched him out of the game in the seventh inning. That wrapped a .136 (3-for-22) road trip for Beltran, and the overall picture doesn't look so hot, either. Since his return July 15, Beltran is batting .195 (15-for-77) with a .300 on-base percentage and .312 slugging percentage. With runners in scoring position, he's hitting .174 (4-for-23).

But these numbers probably are the most unsettling for the Mets: Before Beltran joined them in San Francisco, they were 48-40, four games behind the Braves and one game off the wild-card pace. The Mets are 7-16 with him and now trail the Braves by nine games. They're 7 1/2 out in the wild-card race.

The Mets' season has become a continuation of the rehab process for Beltran, and no more meaningful than all of those extended spring training games he played in Port St. Lucie.

"When things go wrong and go bad, you have to work double to work yourself out of it," Beltran said. "I'm going to keep doing that. I'm not going to quit. I never quit."