The St. Louis Cardinals are used to Carlos Beltran hitting postseason home runs—they're just not used to being happy about it. The Cardinals' new right fielder hit his second home run of the afternoon in the eighth inning, part of a run that left the Washington Nationals down by a final score of 12-4 in Game 2 of the NLDS.
Each of Beltran's homers have come from the right side on Monday; he hit the first off Mike Gonzalez in the sixth inning and followed it with a two-run shot off of erstwhile National League Central reliever Sean Burnett in the eighth. The four-run outburst—Jon Jay also tripled in a run, and Allen Craig doubled and scored Matt Holliday on a Michael Morse error—took what had been a weirdly close 8-4 game and allowed the Cardinals to give Jason Motte the afternoon off, in favor of Trevor Rosenthal.
In 2004, Carlos Beltran nearly eliminated the Cardinals from the NLCS by himself, hitting .317 with four home runs and an OPS of 1.521. In 2006, by then with the Mets, Beltran hit three more home runs, finishing with an OPS of 1.054. After going 2-8 to begin the Cardinals' 2012 postseason run, on Monday Beltran finally showed St. Louis fans the form they'd had unpleasant dreams about since 2006.