Somewhat quietly, Adrian Beltre had another fantastic regular season. It didn't help matters that he missed a chunk of time due to injury, but he posted a 129 OPS+ that was second-best on the Rangers, behind only Mike Napoli. Plus, of course, he was awesome in the field.
Well, Beltre's hot hitting has carried over into the playoffs. Today, anyway. He was 1-for-11 with a single in the first three games of this series. Now he's 3-for-13 with a single and two home runs.
Beltre led off the top of the second with a home run to left off Jeremy Hellickson. That, we already talked about. He came up again in the fourth, and in a 2-and-1 count, Hellickson threw Beltre a fastball over the outer edge that Beltre rode out to right-center field. It was a line drive home run, one of those opposite-field line drive home runs that only the strongest hitters in baseball can hit. Adrian Beltre is one of the strongest hitters in baseball, so.
Three solo homers have given Matt Harrison and the Rangers a 3-1 lead, and Matt Moore was sighted throwing in the Rays bullpen. Now in the bottom of the fourth, the Rays need to start hitting Harrison, and stop striking out.