On Sunday, Bartolo Colon had himself quite a day.
Colon earned the victory in the Mets 4-3 win over the Braves yesterday, throwing seven innings and allowing three runs on six hits with five strikeouts with no walks.
But while he delivered a lengthy outing and a much needed win for the Mets on the mound in the final game of their road trip, Colon was also the difference maker at the plate.
Yes, at the plate.
In the fourth inning with Wilmer Flores at third and one out with the infield drawn in, Colon looped a single over the head of second baseman Jace Peterson to plate Flores and give the Mets a 3-2 lead (you can watch the video here).
“I just remember the World Series, Arizona against the Yankees, they brought everybody in and it was a jam shot over the infield,” Colon said after the game. “If everybody was playing normal, I would have had no shot.”
It was Colon’s first RBI since 2005 while with the Angels.
“When [Colon] puts it in play he gets a cheer, so when he gets a hit it’s a double cheer,” Terry Collins said. “That was a big hit for us and certainly for Bart and it took about 10 minutes to get the bees out of his hands, but it was a good swing for us.”
As Colon swung, his helmet spun off his head. Upon reaching first base, he shook hands with coach Tom Goodwin with a smile. It was a priceless moment, something which overshadows his performance on the mound.
Colon allowed two runs in the second inning thanks to a two-run triple from Andrelton Simmons. That quite possibly would not have happened if the middle infield had the ability to turn a routine inning-ending 4-6-3 double play off the bat of Jonny Gomes.
Generally speaking, it was vintage Colon on the mound. 56 of the 72 fastballs he threw were for strikes and he routinely painted the corners on both sides of the plate. He pitched to a lot weak contact, so he only needed 77 pitches to get through seven innings of work.
Since he throws mostly fastballs, he’s going to make mistakes. It happened yesterday when he floated one of his fastballs over the middle of the plate to Gomes in the seventh inning. But, as has been the case with all of the starters over the first week, he didn’t walk anybody, and that helps him limit the damage when he centers one of his fastballs.
In other words, it’s the same old good story about Colon, with a cherry on top in the fourth inning.
Just Mets 