The St. Louis Cardinals might’ve thought they were safely ahead with a 7–1 lead in the fifth and a 7–6 lead in the ninth. In both cases, they were wrong.
Carlos Beltrán’s two-run walk-off home run confirmed that the Mets were the National League’s best team during the regular season. Those dramatics were preceded by a personal milestone for Carlos Delgado, who made the most of his 400th career homer in the fifth inning of this match-up between division leaders at Shea Stadium.
The Mets dug themselves a 7-1 hole as starter John Maine was victim an insane display of power by future Hall-of-Famer Albert Pujols, who was solely responsible for the three Cardinal runs in the fourth and four more in the fifth. His pair of homers was countered by the Mets’ first baseman. Delgado accounted for his team’s only score when he clocked career home run No. 399 to open the bottom of the second.
His next at-bat was preceded by a walk to Rickey Ledee, José Reyes reaching base on an error, and a single from Paul Lo Duca. There was nowhere to put him, so Delgado put Jeff Weaver’s well pitch over the right-field wall—a typical towering home run from his upper-cut swing.
Reyes narrowed the lead further with an RBI groundout in the sixth, and New York remained down a run until the ninth.
In to protect St. Louis’ advantage was Generation K’s own Jason Isringhausen—a once-hailed Mets pitching prospect now making himself fine career as a reliever. After getting the first out, Lo Duca singled to center.
Up stepped a noted Cardinal killer. Beltrán had tortured St. Louis in the 2004 postseason, almost single-handedly carrying the Houston Astros into the World Series.
Beltran swung at Isringhausen’s first pitch. It was a good thing he did. For a player who never gave off the joy of David Wright or Reyes or even the intense emotion of Lo Duca, Beltrán shed his reserved personality for this walk-off homer—tossing his helmet and leaping on home plate before being besieged by teammates.
Of course, the Cardinals got the better of New York and Beltrán when it really counted. But the home run was the biggest moment in a bounce-back year for the Mets’ most prolific center fielder.
Beltrán rebounded from a rough first year in Queens with arguably the best season of his two-decade major-league career and perhaps the most well-rounded offensive season any Met has ever assembled. He set one Mets record—127 runs scored—and tied two others—80 extra-base hits and 41 homers.
