If he retires, here’s a case for Bartolo
Is Bartolo Colon Cooperstownworthy? Newsday columnist Anthony Rieber thinks so.
“Colon is respected throughout baseball for more than the videos featuring him that have gone viral over the years, whether it was his first career home run in 2016, his behind-the-back toss to first base in 2015 or a play this May when he stopped a line drive to the mound with his ample belly and recovered to get the out,” wrote Rieber.
“The 45-year-old former Mets and Yankees pitcher was in the headlines again this week when he passed Dennis Martinez with his 246th victory to become the winningest Latin American-born pitcher in baseball history.
“Colon’s stats are good enough that he is going to get consideration for the Hall of Fame whenever his long career ends — and that consideration may last until Colon is in his 60s (if he’s actually retired by then).
“Colon’s career record is 246-186. His ERA is 4.09. He has 2,526 strikeouts. He won the 2005 AL Cy Young award by going 21-8 with a 3.48 ERA for the Angels. He is a four-time All-Star, most recently in 2016, when he went 15-8, 3.43 ERA for the Mets.
“Colon is not an all-time great. But he is an all-time character. That may count for something, too, when the time comes. Of course, Colon has to retire first.”
Bad O’s
The Baltimore Orioles will not win the American League East in 2018.
Nothing about that statement should surprise you. Well, except maybe for how early it became official. The Orioles were mathematically eliminated from the division race with Friday’s 1912 loss to the Boston Red Sox.
After Friday’s loss, Baltimore is 46.5 games behind the first-place Red Sox with 46 games left in its season. According to StatsbyStats, that’s the most games a team has had remaining in its season upon elimination during the divisional era. That’s a time frame spanning 50 seasons.
Major League Baseball first divided the American League and National League into two divisions for the 1969 season. In 1995, the league expanded to three divisions in each league. Throughout that time, no team had been officially eliminated this early in the schedule. Not even the Orioles 1988 team that started the season 0-21.
The official date of Baltimore’s elimination, Aug. 10, is notable, too. It tied the 1932 Red Sox and 1962 New York Mets for the earliest date a team has been eliminated from a division or league race. In that scenario, we’re going back through the entire history of MLB.