On Wednesday night, the Mets loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Citi Field coupled with the victory of the Washington Nationals over the New York Yankees dropped the Mets out of first place in the National League East for the first time since April 14. Mets skipper Terry Collins was not overly distressed by the change in the fortunes of the Mets, “It isn’t deflating. There’s no sense of urgency here. There’s no panic here.’
The shutout, 9-0, was the fourth game the Mets were blanked in 2015, the second time in the last six games. Bartolo Colon was the starting Mets pitcher in the last two shutouts.
The lack of hitting by Mets batters has been a serious deficiency. The Mets have scored three runs or fewer in 16 of their last 22 games. Their record in the 16 low scoring games is 4-12.
On Wednesday, the offense only garnered four singles. They had the bases loaded with one out in the third, but a fly ball to right by Michael Cuddyer and a ground out to third by Daniel Murphy ended the frame without a run.
For the Mets, Colon pitched his least effective game of the season. He was lifted after 4.1 innings, his shortest tenure in a start in 2015. He yielded 11 hits, nine runs, eight earned runs and two walks, all season highs.
The veteran hurler, who will reach his 42nd birthday four days after Wednesday’s game, walked Matt Carpenter with one out in the fourth. The base on balls ended Colon’s streak of 48.2 innings without walking a batter, which is a new Mets mark that broke the 47.2 innings held by Bret Saberhagen since 1994. The walk also ended Colon’s streak of seven consecutive starts during which he did not issue a walk.
Colon’s loss was the 21st consecutive start in which he received a decision. He is 13-8 in his last 21 starts. The decision was also his first loss to the Cardinals in his seven starts against them.
Collins spoke about Colon’s performance after the contest, “You just have to make good pitches and he didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him struggle so much with the control side.”
The manager was also disappointed with the shortness of Colon’s stint, “Our bullpen is starting to tire. We got to get some more innings out of our starters.”