Bartolo Colon was attempting to go for his sixth consecutive win on Wednesday night and open his season 5-0, something he has never done in his long and storied career.
However, it was not meant to be.
Colon fell to 4-1 for the year after allowing four earned runs in 6 2/3 innings.
Colon almost looked too strong in the first inning. He had some extra velocity working, and his two-seamer was up with not a lot of movement. Of course, if the Mets could’ve turned the double play before facing Stanton, the two runs he allowed in the first would not have come across – Giancarlo Stanton followed that botched double play with a long two-run home run.
“I thought we had a double-play chance and we didn’t make it,” Terry Collins said after the game. “You make mistakes to that big guy and he can do some damage, and then I thought after that Colon pitched very well.”
It wasn’t his best night by any means – he gave up a lot of hits, but as usual he didn’t walk anyone which helped him manage through six effective innings. The movement on his two-seamer returned after the first inning and it was a very useful pitch for him in the middle innings, particularly on the outside edge.
Still, Colon took responsibility for the loss in his post game talk with reporters.
“I think I did a pretty good job,” Colon said through a translator. “More than anything the team was scoring runs for me, too bad I couldn’t pick them up when I needed to.”
He was betrayed once again by his defense in the fifth inning which allowed the go-ahead run to score, but that was due to the bench ordering a full shift on Stanton – he hit a routine groundball to second base, but because of the shift around to the left, Murphy was pulled behind second base and had to run too far to get to the ball. By that time, Stanton was safe, and the Mets trailed. The approach was curious as they were working Stanton consistently outside with the infield shifted to his pull side, but it’s also unusual for the infield to shift against a right-handed hitter anyway.
I did wonder through the course of his outing, I began to wonder if the extra day of rest might’ve made Colon less effective. Of course, three of his five starts have come with an extra day of rest this season, so that became invalidated.
Still, so many pitchers depend upon a stable routine, and this unquestionably alters that routine, for better or worse depending upon the pitcher. While it’s understandable what the club is doing as they attempt to protect and limit the number of innings both Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom throw over the course of the season, the decision could have far more reaching effects than just these two arms.
Just Mets 