The Carlos Beltran the St. Louis Cardinals got in free agency in the offseason was supposed to maybe steal five bases in a year. The last time he did that was 2009, the year his legs started to fail him; with New York and the San Francisco Giants in 2011, in his big renaissance as a slugging right fielder, he was nearly immobile once he reached base, despite hitting six triples. In 2012... well, it looks like he's feeling pretty good about his legs. He's stolen five bases in six attempts in his Cardinals debut, leaving him on pace, in a straight extrapolation of his early performance, to steal 39 bases.
↵He probably won't do that, but the fact that Carlos Beltran is running again should leave Cardinals fans as optimistic about his performance as the five home runs he also has. Microfracture surgery often leaves players unable to trust their knees for years after it happens, but something has changed for Beltran between last April and this one.
↵For a related story, here's Nathan Grimm on how everybody on Mike Matheny's St. Louis Cardinals is running, now.
↵