MET NOTES
SAN DIEGO – Carlos Beltran was not in the starting lineup last night, and the center fielder’s MRI results on his right hamstring were not immediately known.
Beltran, who has been suffering from an ailing right hamstring since last Saturday, had the MRI yesterday at a La Jolla hospital, but the test results were sent to the Mets’ doctors. There was no verdict on the tests as of late last night, though Beltran pinch hit in the seventh inning against the Padres, grounding out hard to second.
Beltran had missed four-plus games due to the hamstring before coming back on Thursday. But he only stayed in for the first 4½ innings before leaving.
“I feel like it wasn’t better and I decided to tell Willie [Randolph] to take me out because I wasn’t going to be able to make it,” Beltran said Thursday.
“This whole thing could just be some guys just sometimes don’t understand how injuries feel when you’re coming back from something,” Randolph said before last night’s game. “It just could be something simple as just fatigue.”
Endy Chavez started in center again last night. Randolph said Jose Valentin and Chris Woodward are other center-field options. Valentin has played 24 career games in center, all in 2001 for the White Sox. Woodward has played five games there, all last season. Neither has committed an error there.
Randolph said the Mets need a resolution to Beltran’s situation.
“The thing for us is that we can’t have [Beltran] go day-to-day too long because we don’t want to play short,” Randolph said. “So we have to make a decision sometime soon.”
He insisted that if needed, Chavez “is our center fielder, backup center fielder, so he would play. Now he might not play every day, but I don’t see us right now doing anything drastic or anything like that.”
There is also top prospect Lastings Milledge, who entered yesterday hitting .400 at Norfolk with a homer and a .530 on-base percentage. But Randolph said Millege isn’t an option now.
“No, we haven’t talked about that. He had a nice little start, but we haven’t talked about that,” he said. “We feel Endy and the people we have here are capable for now.”
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David Wright said his groin was “tender” and had the area wrapped before last night’s game. Wright was in the lineup.
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Entering last night, the last time the Mets’ bullpen had given up a run was Sunday, a stretch of 132/3 innings.
In Thursday night’s 7-2 win over the Padres, the Mets’ relief corps continued its surge, tossing three scoreless innings and giving up one hit. The pen walked nobody and struck out four, a strong job by Chad Bradford, Pedro Feliciano, Duaner Sanchez, Aaron Heilman and Jorge Julio.
This season, the Mets’ bullpen had the best ERA in the majors (2.98).
Sanchez (0.00 ERA in 10 innings) and Bradford (0.00 ERA in 32/3 innings) had yet to give up a run this year, and Billy Wagner had given up one run in seven innings. Even Feliciano, a recent call-up, had tossed 31/3 scoreless innings.
