LOS ANGELES -- Games and days and cities are blending together, and still Carlos Beltran does not feel right. He hates that feeling. Obsesses over it, really.
It's a feeling that prompts the Mets' center fielder to come to the ballpark early and leave late. It drives him to take extra hacks in the batting cage, to study film, to study himself. So far, nothing has worked, and one of the National League's most talented hitters simply has not been able to hit. Here Beltran is, five weeks into the season, still waiting for something to click.
"If he wasn't working or if he wasn't trying, then it would be something different," manager Willie Randolph said. "But hitting a baseball is very difficult, as you know."
Beltran knows. Since opening the season on a quick tear, he has ranked among the Mets' least productive hitters, batting just .181 with two home runs over his past 28 games. Consider that Beltran is a career .279 hitter who has averaged 24 home runs per year since becoming a full-time starter, and then consider his current state of affairs.
The way one of the league's more studious hitters sees it, it's all pretty simple.
"My problem," Beltran said, "is timing."
That simple problem, of course, requires a simple solution. Since Beltran swears there's nothing wrong with his swing, his solutions revolve almost exclusively around repetition. He can't adjust his mechanics, because they remain in fine form. All he can do, according to hitting coach Howard Johnson, is swing, swing, swing.
"If your timing is off, you could have the greatest swing in the world, but you're not going to be consistent," Johnson said. "That's kind of where he's at."
But how he arrived at this point defies explanation. Beltran, throughout his struggles, has waded through one of the game's great enigmas. For the better part of a decade, he's been one of the game's most productive hitters, but now, suddenly, he can't seem to hit.
When Beltran had a down year in 2005, many blamed his inability to adjust to the pressures of playing in New York. When he struggled at times last season, his balky knees assumed some of the fault. But now that Beltran has proven he can hit in New York and has undergone surgery to clear out debris from both knees, there's no easy solution.
The Mets' cleanup hitter has lost his timing, and even he does not know how.
"Wow," Johnson said, shaking his head. "That's part of the game, unfortunately."
It doesn't help that his teammates have done little to ease the pressure. Carlos Delgado, never quite recovered from last season's slump, is hitting only .216. David Wright, an MVP candidate one year ago, is hitting .262. Jose Reyes, blamed for many of his team's faults down the stretch last year, is hitting .254. Luis Castillo, freshly signed to a four-year contract that could take him to the end of his playing career, is hitting .242.
Beltran, literally in the middle of it all, is hitting .218. And sinking.
"It's just a matter of time," said outfielder Ryan Church, one of the few productive Mets to date. "We know we can do it. We have the team and the lineup to do it."
Church's comments came after his team had knocked out 12 runs against the Dodgers in Wednesday's series finale in Los Angeles. Beltran was in the center of the lineup, but far removed from any of the rallies. He finished 1-for-5 with a ground-ball single.
Still, Wednesday marked one of the more encouraging games he's played in some time. In the first inning, Beltran lined a ball directly to first baseman James Loney, who snared it on the fly. In the third, he scorched a grounder to precisely the same spot, where Loney snagged it on a hop and tossed to first for the out. In each distance, Beltran came only inches away from recording a hit.
That's not bad timing. That's simply bad luck.
"He looked a lot better," Johnson said. "He looked a lot more comfortable. He's just really slowing himself down. He's trying to see the ball better, and it all starts with that. If he can do that, he's going to be right back on track very, very quickly."
The Mets, frankly, could use the help. And Beltran could use the relief.
"Being honest, I feel good," he said. "I'm not worried about anything. I'm just playing the game, and I know that everything will come."
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