Adrian Beltre celebrated after stealing his (totally uncontested) first base of 2016
Adrian Beltre is a man of many baseball talents. Whether playing defense, hitting home runs, making contact on baseballs he has no business hitting, or just performing the art of pantomime, Beltre is a player without peer. You rarely see him steal a base, though.
During the Rangers' 3-2 loss to the Angels on Sunday, Beltre was standing on first base with Jered Weaver on the mound. With zero steals on the year, Weaver wasn't too worried about him taking the extra base.
The lesson here? Never underestimate Beltre:
After the game, Beltre admitted, "I was too quick. No, I was just trying to sneak one stolen base right there. It's a close game, we're down by one and he wasn't paying a lot of attention to me so I took my chances, saw a couple pitches and how he wasn't going to first and saw that he's not going to pick it, so I took my break."
As for the celebration, that was just for his Rangers teammates in the dugout. "They were talking smack because I haven't stolen a base this year yet. Just to show them that I still have it."
The steal gave Beltre six consecutive seasons with exactly one stolen base, which doesn't mean much, but makes for an oddly soothing stat line.
Of course, Beltre also got plenty of practice running the bases on Sunday as he also hit two solo home runs to account for all the Rangers runs.
And just like the soothing consistency of Beltre's stolen base record, his hitting performance is oddly symmetrical, too.
Beltre, age 22-29: 200 HR in 1,203 G.
— Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) September 11, 2016
Beltre, age 30-37: 200 HR in 1,134 G.
