Best hitters in playoff history: Ruth, Gehrig and ... Beltran? - MLB

The perception of Carlos Beltran’s performance in the playoffs is largely built around his once taking an Adam Wainwright curveball for an NLCS-ending called third strike. That narrative, like many narratives, couldn’t be further from the truth.

After homering twice last night Beltran has now gone deep 13 times in 25 career playoff games while hitting .362 with a 1.297 OPS. He’s played in six different playoff series and has posted an OPS above 1.000 in four of them (including that NLCS against Wainwright and the Cardinals in 2006).

Obviously those are amazing numbers, but did you know Beltran now owns the highest slugging percentage and the highest OPS in postseason history? Here are the career leardboards among everyone with at least 100 plate appearances in the playoffs:

                    PA      SLG                            PA      OPS
CARLOS BELTRAN     115     .819        CARLOS BELTRAN     115    1.297
Babe Ruth          167     .744        Babe Ruth          167    1.211
Lou Gehrig         150     .731        Lou Gehrig         150    1.208

Carlos Beltran. Babe Ruth. Lou Gehrig. No big deal or anything.

A doubleheader between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers this week is being postponed to allow more time for additional COVID-19 testing.

MLB opted to postpone Thursday’s doubleheader to continue additional testing while players and staff are quarantined before the team returns to play. More details about the Cardinals’ resumption of play will be announced later this week.

The Cardinals had a series against Pittsburgh set to start on Monday postponed after a weekend series against the Cubs was scrapped due to three positive coronavirus tests.

St. Louis had two more players and a staff member test positive for the virus on Friday and have had eight positive players overall, including star catcher Yadier Molina.

There have now been 29 games postponed by Major League Baseball because of coronavirus concerns. The Cardinals have not played since July 30 and have had 15 games scrapped.

Miami and Philadelphia each had seven games postponed earlier and have returned to the field since the disruptions.

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Best hitters in playoff history: Ruth, Gehrig and … Beltran?

Doubleheader between Cardinals and Tigers postponed