Colon Was Large and in Charge

If the Mets actually pull this off and win the division, they need to send some playoff shares to the Phillies as they are now 13-1 against them. If not for the Phillies, the Mets would only be three games over .500 right now and in a tie for the division lead with the Nationals. 

Today’s win was fueled by Bartolo Colon. He was once again terrific against them. Last time out, he went 7 innings with eight strikeouts and none earned. Tonight, he was even better going 8 innings with nine strikeouts and no runs allowed.  Between this start and Saturday’s relief appearance, he is single-handedly saving the bullpen. Honestly, he could’ve and should’ve gone nine. 

Jeurys Familia came on in the ninth, and he got into trouble. He loaded the bases. He was able to induce a 6-4-3 double play. He dodged a bullet when a would be Andres Blanco extra base hit went foul. Familia would strike him out to end the game. However, tonight belonged to Colon. 

Colon even added some offense. After Michael Conforto‘s opposite field HR giving the Mets a 1-0 lead in the fifth, Colon added a single. He would score on Curtis Granderson‘s homerun. Colon would make these three fifth inning runs hold up for the Mets 3-0 win. 

There needs to be an important point made about replay here. In the seventh, it appeared Conforto had his first stolen base. However, the tag lingered. There was about .000000000000000000000000000001 seconds where Conforto was not on the bag. After a review lasting about four hours, Conforto was ruled out. It became his first caught stealing instead of his first stolen base. 

I lean towards being old school. I was skeptical of replay. I agree that if you’re going to have it, you need to get the call right. The umpires got the call right. However, I still can’t believe that was actually replayed. Second, while I don’t think it was the case, how could you tell that the rage forced Conforto off the bag for that split second?  

If baseball wants to speed up the game, they have to address all areas. If you want a clock on the pitcher and batter, you need a clock on replay.  It detracted from the viewing experience. 

Luckily, it didn’t detract from the win.