They're both right!

Carlos Beltran: "The reality of this is coming here to Pittsburgh and getting swept, me, I feel embarrassed."

Pittsburgh Pirate Adam LaRoche on Beltran's comment: "I think it shows zero class and zero professionalism."

Personally I don't have a problem with Beltran saying what he said. I like an athlete who's not afraid to provide some real talk, and the Pirates are by any fair-minded assessment a very bad team that a prospective world champion should be embarrassed to get swept by.

But it remains very insulting to say as much, and you can't expect the Pirates to appreciate it. And note how LaRoche shrewdly declines to refute Beltran's premise (i.e. that the Pirates suck), and instead makes it a character issue. "Class" is a very big term in sports media. It's the central, catch-all term for all personal, non playing-related virtues: kindness, generosity, not committing sexual assault, etc.

So that's what LaRoche had to hit back with, and hit back he did. Good for him. And it's a shot that will probably get more traction for the fact that Beltran-bashing is surprisingly en vogue these days. Idiots like Steve Phillips were already arguing that Beltran is woefully short on intangibles. They might not have thought to take the Pirates comment as "clubhouse cancer" fodder but thanks to LaRoche they probably will now.

Steve Phillips doesn't know what he's talking about

I can't believe the Mets ever let this clown run the team:

If the Mets don't make the playoffs, I firmly believe they need to reconfigure the core of this team. While Beltran does have talent, I just don't see him as a winning player. Even after my comments on Sunday night, Beltran let a fly ball drop in between himself and Angel Pagan in the Dodger game. I see him putting up numbers but not making plays to win games. I would take Torii Hunter, Grady Sizemore, Curtis Granderson, and Nate McLouth over Beltran, and use the financial difference to improve the team in other ways. Beltran isn't a $17 million dollar a year player. He just doesn't have the kind of impact for that kind of money.

Hey Steve-o, if I were responsible for the Mo Vaughn signing I would keep my mouth shut about the ephemeral "winning" quality that Carlos Beltran supposedly lacks. And if the Mets don't win, your solution is to get rid of the best players? Think for a minute about how stupid that makes you.

h/t Amazin' Avenue

Beltran hits 9th inning, 2 out, go ahead grand slam

Boy that was sweet. It looked like Oliver Perez might be a hard luck loser, but instead he'll get a hard luck no decision.

Probably since Adam Wainwright struck him out looking in the LCS, I've had the impression of Beltran as a little bit of a choker. I mean, not that I believe in that sort of stuff, really, but if I did he'd be one of the guys I'd accuse of being not-clutch.

But there he was, teeing off Kevin Gregg to go from near defeat to almost certain victory. Once again I'm posting this before the game goes final, but since when has Luis Ayala blown a save opportunity? Oh, that's right. Tuesday.

More on that Beltran ejection

So the ejection that turned the Mets lineup card into a grab bag of bench players from the late 90s was not entirely Carlos Beltran's fault. Matt Cerrone at MetsBlog has the SNY video. I'd say it shows that while Beltran did some pretty serious muttering about the (bad) called strike, umpires aren't supposed to take off their masks and get in players' grills like that.

My favorite part is the moment at which Jerry Manuel goes from angry to superangry. It happened in a kind of spasm that almost knocked his cap off his head.