In his year and a half with the Mets, there have essentially been two versions of Bartolo Colon which could take the mound on any given day.
There’s the Colon who can be effective for six or seven innings, throw strikes, pitch to contact and not walk batters.
But then there’s the Colon which was on display at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Saturday. The version which can be detected virtually immediately, the one which manager Terry Collins nearly pulled (and probably should have pulled) in the first inning after he allowed four runs to score before the Mets could even react.
It’s essentially something which has to be dealt with while he plays out the rest of his contract through the end of this season, in which he is earning $11 million while producing a 4.86 ERA, largely due to the handful of games he has pitched like last night when he is simply ineffective.
“It was nothing really I can pinpoint,” Colon explained through an interpreter on Saturday night. “They were really aggressive, and they attacked the pitches. They know I’m going to be aggressive in the zone, and they took advantage of it.”
Part of the problem was Colon had no command of his two-seamer at all. Often times, his fastball was flying up and way out of the strike zone, and others it was floating at 86-88 mph over the middle of the plate in hitters counts, and the Cardinals treated him like eight vultures when he wasn’t walking them.
Colon ultimately walked three batters on Saturday night, raising his season total to 14 in 109 1/3 innings. Five of those walks have come in 8 2/3 innings against the Cardinals this season, during which he’s allowed 15 earned runs.
He is 9-6 with a 3.93 ERA with only nine walks in 100 2/3 innings against teams other than the Cardinals.
Terry Collins suggested Colon might have been rusty, as he had not pitched since July 8 in San Francisco.
“I think this goes to show you that one of the things the break can do to certain guys is just get you out of whack,” Collins explained. “That wasn’t the Bartolo Colon we know tonight. This guy has only walked nine guys all year.”
Or, maybe it was just the other version of Colon and one of those throwaway starts for the 42-year-old veteran. He’s been in the league for 18 years – he probably knows how to manage himself during the All-Star break.
Colon didn’t use the break as a reason for his struggles on Saturday.
“That break, it’s going to help everybody, including myself, to be fresh for the second half. It didn’t affect me at all,” Colon explained.
The problem is, if history is any indication, something like this is bound to happen again down the stretch of the season. But now that it’s the second half and the margin for error is becoming even slimmer with each passing day, the Collins and Dan Warthen are going to have to be aggressive in putting a stop to this bleeding much quicker now than before, whether it’s with Colon or any other starter.
This is an offense averaging 3.4 runs per game. So, they can’t be afraid to yank someone if they show this kind of ineffectiveness again, because with this offense, a three run lead is too much for this team to overcome.
Just Mets 