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Carlos Beltran made switch-hitting history with homer No. 400
Monday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes Beltran’s big homer, the brawling Rangers and Blue Jays, and Bryce Harper’s mission statement.
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
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Carlos Beltran’s contract with the Yankees is winding down, as he’s in the last year of a three-season pact. However, he managed at least one more milestone before leaving town or retiring or whatever it is he plans on doing post-2016. Beltran went deep for the 400th time in his career on Sunday, making him just the fourth switch-hitter in baseball’s long history to achieve that feat. He’s the 54th player to reach 400 homers and passed Andres Galarraga on the all-time list with this last one, but just Mickey Mantle (536), Eddie Murray (504), and Chipper Jones (468) have more dingers among switch-hitters. Beltran is also only the third Puerto Rican-born player with at least 400 homers -- the others are Carlos Delgado and Juan Gonzalez.
Beltran, barring some late-career resurgence, is likely going to finish things out with the fourth-most among his dual-handed brethren, given he’s 39 and his bat seems to be slowing down even if the power is still there. Who knows, though? It’s just mid-May, and Beltran batted .276/.337/.471 with 19 homers a year ago, so maybe he’ll be able to keep things going for a little while longer and finish comfortably within the top-50 or top-45 before he’s done.
Even if not, he’s had a Hall of Fame career. Beltran has played for 19 seasons already, batted .280/.354/.490 (121 OPS+) in that time, was a tremendous defensive player in center in his younger years, made 10 All-Star teams, received MVP votes in nine seasons, and has had an impressive postseason career with 16 homers and a .674 slugging over 52 playoff games. He’s done just about everything you can do besides win a World Series -- he was on both the Giants and Cardinals a year too late, then saw his one Fall Classic team fall to the Red Sox in 2013 -- but you can’t really blame him for that. Well, you shouldn’t, but it’s Beltran, so people will.
- Rougned Odor sure punched Jose Bautista in the face on Sunday.
- Odor's Wikipedia page has been updated to reflect this hit.
- If you thought the brawl was violent, then you should know that no hot dogs survived the mascot race in Kansas City.
- Anthony Gose is in the minors, as Cameron Maybin's rehab assignment is finally over and he's back in the bigs.
- Bryce Harper has a new decal for the knob of his bat and it's the mission statement we love him for.
- Andrew Benintendi was finally promoted to Double-A after tying a franchise hitting streak, hitting roughly a million triples, and getting to the point where minor league managers were intentionally walking him, which is not a very minor league thing to do.
- Do you like gender reveal parties? Christian Colon apparently does, as he used baseball to announce his upcoming news.
- Would you like to watch an outfielder somersault over a wall to make a catch?
- It feels like forever since Hyun-jin Ryu took the mound, but we can reset that clock now as he had his first rehab start.
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