Could Rangers' Keep Adrian Healthy Plan result in a few more Opening Days for Beltre?

At times during spring training, Adrian Beltre just disappeared.

It was all by design, just not his design.

He didn't go out to the back fields with the rest of his Texas Rangers teammates. There were days when he didn't even go outside for a breath of fresh desert air.

Beltre wanted to go 0 to 60 on Day 1. The Rangers stomped on the parking break.

The plan was to prevent a repeat of last year, when Beltre was on the disabled list on Opening Day through the last Monday in May and played only 93 games. So far, so good, as Beltre will be the Rangers' starting third baseman today in the 2018 lid-lifter against the Houston Astros.

But a season is 162 games, and the Rangers need Beltre for as many as his aging body will allow. It won't be until September when they will learn if the plan worked.

If it does, perhaps that will convince Beltre to stick around for a few more Opening Days. Excuse him if he soaks this one in a little bit more.

"For me now on, it will be a little more special," he said. "Because last year, not only did I miss Opening Day but right now I don't know which one is going to be my last one."

Beltre isn't into chasing records, though he figured out a way to charge to 3,000 last season. He says that he isn't shooting for 500 homers or even six more hits to pass Rod Carew for the most for a player from Latin America.

But he is chasing a World Series ring, which slipped away from him in 2011 in his first season with the Rangers. The oddsmakers don't like the Rangers' chances this season, and some think the odds are better that the Rangers trade Beltre at the trade deadline to give him a chance at a title.

No matter what happens this season or how long he plans to pursue a world championship, Beltre must be healthy. Spring training could be his launching pad.

"I was holding back in the sense of being careful and not pushing anything but game-wise I was fine," Beltre said. "In the past few [springs], I was not healthy. It was my fault, because I was trying to push things.

"I've always been like that, trying to push myself to the limits in spring training to make sure I was ready for the season. This year I was able, somehow, to listen to the trainers. They gave me a good plan to make sure my legs are ready for the season. So far, so good."

No one will ever question Beltre's toughness. He played much of 2015 with his a torn ligament in his left thumb. In 2016, he was bothered by nagging leg injures. Last season, his right calf blew early and his left hamstring tore late.

It wasn't so much his advanced (baseball) age that convinced him to listen to Rangers trainers, but playing fewer than 100 games for the first time since his rookie season and missing Opening Day.

"Last year was not like it was slowing me down offensively," Beltre said. "It was more muscle stuff. The hamstring always happens. That's been happening since I was 20. The calf is something that I never had like that, but it was nothing that was age related.

"It gave me an idea of maybe I should take care of myself a little more instead of being so hard-headed and try to push through things."

Maybe that will mean more games at designated hitter this season or less resistance when the lineup card is posted and his name isn't on it. Maybe.

But he and the Rangers will do there best to keep him off the DL. That's where he was last year for the season-opener.

So far, so good, but it will be six months before anyone knows for sure how well the Rangers' spring plan for Beltre worked.

"If he stays healthy for most of the year and the early part of the season, everybody will say it's a success," manager Jeff Banister said. "If something happens, we'll wonder. But I do know, coming out of spring training, that he feels good."

This story was originally published March 29, 2018 at 11:04 AM with the headline "Could Rangers' Keep Adrian Healthy Plan result in a few more Opening Days for Beltre?."