A look at the batting order Sunday afternoon had to make even the most optimistic Mets fans cringe. Bartolo Colon’s performance only exacerbated the problem.
Throw in Giants southpaw Madison Bumgarner’s dominance and the large pockets of San Francisco fans who flooded Citi Field, it was a predictably lost afternoon for the Mets as they absorbed a 9-0 beating at the hands of one of the NL wild-card leaders.
“Today, we got out-matched,” Mets manager Terry Collins said.
After consecutive stellar starts, Colon (10-9) turned in one of his worst performances, lasting just 4 ²/₃ innings — tied for his shortest outing of the year — three days after the Mets held onto the hefty 41-year-old righty at the trade deadline. He allowed eight hits, four for extra bases — including home runs to Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt.
The makeshift lineup, minus regulars Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda and Travis d’Arnaud — arguably the three most potent hitters the Mets have these days —featuring five hitters batting .231 or fewer, and that didn’t include Colon.
Light-hitting shortstop Ruben Tejada was in the second spot in the order in place of Murphy; utility man Eric Campbell was in the cleanup spot, replacing Duda; and chronically struggling outfielder Chris Young was fifth, where catcher d’Arnaud has been hitting. All three starters were given the day off by Collins.
“It was Duda-Murphy or Murphy-Curtis Granderson — it was gonna be two lefties who were gonna be off today,” Collins said before the rout. “I thought today would be a good day for it, against Bumgarner.”
Wilmer Flores and David Wright had the Mets’ (53-58) only hits off the lefty, who needed just 94 pitches to pick up his second career complete game shutout while striking out 10, which tied a season-high. Granderson drew a first-inning walk and Flores reached in the eighth on Belt’s fielding error, representing the other two base runners for the Mets.
“We didn’t stay very close, either,” Collins said. “We didn’t help [ourselves] out by all the home runs they hit.”
Even with the everyday lineup intact, the Mets offense has sputtered since the All-Star break, producing 45 runs in 16 games and getting shut out three times. Because of the pitching staff, they have won eight of those games. This weekend against the Giants, the Mets scored a meager five runs — four coming in the seventh inning Saturday night — on eight hits in 26 innings.
“We’re not putting very good swings on balls we can handle, but there’s a reason why that team was put together the way it was on the other side of the field. They got good pitching,” Collins said. “There’s a few guys we got to get going, there’s guys we depend on to get hits and get on base, and we got to start doing that. It goes back to the same stuff we talked about all summer when we haven’t hit, and that is when you get balls you can handle, you got to him them and you got to him them hard.
“We’re not doing that. We’re popping them up, or we’re rolling them over. That’s why the other team looks like they’re dominating us offensively.”
Colon actually got off to a solid start, putting up zeroes in the first two frames, before blowing up over the next three innings. He hung a slider to Pence, and the outfielder rocketed it over the left-center field fence. Colon was ahead of Belt in the fourth, but he left a 1-2 fastball belt-high over the middle, and the first baseman dunked it over the wall down the right-field line.
The Giants tacked on three more runs in the fifth, Bumgarner starting the rally with a one-out single, before Collins mercifully lifted Colon.
“I felt really good the first two innings. I don’t really know what happened after that,” Colon said through an interpreter. “I think I was pitching just the same. But the batters adjusted and started hitting the ball.”