The Phillies’ youth movement was interrupted Wednesday night by a rotund, 42-year-old man who looks more like a Wing Bowl wannabe than a major league pitcher.
But don’t let looks deceive you.
Bartolo Colon can pitch.
The Phillies were reminded of this when they suffered another loss to the New York Mets, their 11th in 12 meetings this season. Colon stymied the Phillies on five hits over seven scoreless innings as the Mets put down the Phillies, 9-4, in front of a lot of happy Mets fans at Citizens Bank Park (see Instant Replay).
The Mets’ sixth straight win increased their lead over the underachieving Washington Nationals to 6½ games in the NL East.
The Phillies are sitting the race out for the fourth straight year, but unlike other years, when they hoped to be in the race, they had no delusions of doing so this season. This was a break-it-down-and-start-to-build-it-up season right from the beginning.
Trading Cole Hamels to Texas was part of the break down.
Bringing back pitcher Jerad Eickhoff in the deal was part of the build up.
Though Eickhoff was not the headliner in the deal, he became the first of the five prospects that the Phillies picked up (the Phils also received injured big-league pitcher Matt Harrison) to make the majors when he debuted with six scoreless innings in Miami on Friday.
Wednesday offered Eickhoff the chance to test himself against a tougher lineup in his new home ballpark.
“First start at home, there were some jitters,” the 25-year-old right-hander from southern Indiana said.
The jitters manifested themselves in a 40-pitch first inning and an early 3-0 deficit. Eickhoff only gave up a couple hard-hit balls in the inning, but one of them was dropped at the wall, and another drove home a run. Nine men came to the plate in the first inning, but Eickhoff retired the last two. He then collected himself some more, got his pitches down in the zone, and set down the next 14 in a row before giving up a double and a single in the sixth inning to fall behind, 4-0.
The Phillies hadn’t had a rookie starter retire 16 straight batters since Mike Grace set down 17 Braves in a row on May 12, 1996.
Despite the difficult first inning, Eickhoff did some legitimately good things in the start. Now, as a young guy trying to make it in the major leagues, he needs to do more of them to stick around.
“After that first inning I just got back to attacking the strike zone,” he said. “I started to look for some early contact.”
Eickhoff averaged just 11 pitches an inning after the first and finished with two walks and six strikeouts in six innings. In 12 innings with the Phils, he's walked two and struck out 11.
“He was a little nervous pitching in Philly for the first time,” manager Pete Mackanin said. “But after that first inning I thought he did an outstanding job. He basically had a quality start. He turned himself around and pitched very well through the sixth inning.
“He wasn’t the guy we saw in Miami in the first inning, but he was that guy after the first inning.”
Eickhoff left the game trailing, 4-0, and the Mets built their lead to 6-0 on a long two-run homer by Michael Cuddyer off Hector Neris in the top of the eighth.
In the bottom of the eighth, with Colon gone, the Phillies rallied for four runs to pull to within two. Cameron Rupp had a two-run double and Jeff Francoeur an RBI pinch-hit single in the inning. Francoeur is 10 for 21 with 10 RBIs as a pinch-hitter this season.
Any chance the Phils had of coming back all the way were dashed in the top of the ninth when the Mets scored three times. Freddy Galvis made two errors in the inning and the Mets had three hits.
That’s the way it has been with the Mets when they play the Phillies recently. They just keep coming and coming. They are 13-3 in Citizens Bank Park the last two years.
“I’m happy we made a game out of it, but we were kind of listless the whole game mainly because Colon knows how to pitch,” Mackanin said. “He generally cuts you up with the fastball, but tonight used all his pitches and held us down.
“Colon is a top-notch pitcher. When he’s on, he’s tough to hit.”
“He keeps the ball down and when he misses he doesn’t miss over the plate,” Rupp said.
The Mets have outscored the Phillies, 31-16, these last three nights. They will look to make it a four-game sweep in the series finale Thursday night.
“They’ve had our number all year,” Mackanin said. “We’ve got to salvage a game out of this.”