The rest of Bartolo Colon’s game

It’s hard to believe but a good many Americans find the game of baseball slow and boring. We aficionados of the game disagree with that assessment, at least for public consumption. In our more reflective moments we realize that games have a whole lot of routine ground outs to third (OK, admittedly they are never routine when Wilmer Flores is manning the hot corner), cans of corn to the outfield, and a bunch of strikeouts of the looking and swinging type.

Because there is a sameness to the game we tend to be turned on to things that are stark departures. For instance there’s a fellow playing in Houston who has hit 21 HR’s and has a Mike Trout-like batting line of .355 BA/ .415 OBP/ .565 slugging percentage. This fellow is all of 5’6” tall (if that) and his name is Jose Altuve.

The KC Royals have a veteran starter-reliever named Chris Young. We Mets fans remember his time in Queens. He stands 6’10” tall so he looks much more like an NBA’er than an MLB’er. His pitches angle down as if they’ve been launched from the top of the St. Louis arch. But he is Chris Young, not Cy Young, which you can know from his unimpressive 5.74 ERA.

Young and Altuve represent the long and short of it. The Mets’ Bartolo Colon is built quite a bit different than either of those guys. He’s a wide body and currently the oldest active major leaguer at 43. He is five months older than Ichiro Suzuki. In professional sports terms these guys are grandfathers.

While the Mets pay Colon millions mostly to get batters out with the many varieties of fastballs he throws – pretty much to the exclusion of any other kinds of pitches- there is more to his game than just throwing the ball over the plate. Let’s discuss these other things.

None of us have seen Colon in the clubhouse interacting with his teammates but everything we have heard and read indicates that he is a highly respected member of the clubhouse community. The young pitchers seem to gravitate to him for his experience and knowledge of the game. After all he was pitching in the majors in 1997. Johnny Cash use to sing, “I’ve been everywhere”. Colon could sing a version talking about all the things he has seen on the pitchers mound for almost two decades. He has seen and done it all.

For a fellow who runs pretty much like me and my fellow tennis buddies (almost all of whom are in their 60’s and 70’s) Colon is a surprisingly deft fielder. His pitching motion leaves him in good fielding position and he is better than most in spearing balls headed back through the box. He has a quick first step coming off the hill to field bunts and other dribblers. Where he is challenged is beating the batter-runner to first base when it is his job to cover the bag. If the batter is Billy Hamilton or Dee Gordon or someone like that it’s no contest. Colon won’t make it in time.

Colon controls the running game well from the mound. He has a good pickoff move and is patient enough to use it often and to vary when he comes to the plate.

At the plate Colon is the agony and the ecstasy. But he is always entertaining. We have all seen him take at bats off where he has no intention of swinging either because of an ache that he doesn’t want to exacerbate or perhaps he is just not in the mood.

Quite often he brings out the all or nothing swing. Usually this does not contact ball and frequently his helmet comes tumbling off in the process. But every once in a while he makes contact, hard contact, with a surprisingly level swing. The levelness of his swing tends to impart topspin to the ball which most batters these days do not get. Most batters are uppercutting the ball creating backspin that can help deep fly balls carry over the fence.

Last Friday in Colon’s second two-hit game of his career he had a double that had so much topspin that it flew past left fielder Aaron Altherr who has a good defensive reputation. Clearly he was taken aback by how fast that ball was rolling as he got close to it.

Colon though is not much of a bunter and because he is so slow a runner – yes, even slower than Wilmer Flores, Rene Rivera, and James Loney, as if that were possible – he is a candidate to hit into a double play even when he does get a bunt down. To paraphrase what Bartolo has said about running, “I don’t much care to run but my teammates seem to get a kick out of seeing me try.”

The Mets have gotten their money’s worth from having signed this most unique character. We fans have enjoyed his ride too.