Braves still waiting for Colon to succeed

Bartolo Colon pitches next in Houston on Tuesday and if you’re following the arc of his performance as an Atlanta Brave, you’re not overly encouraged. His first three starts saw him yield eight earned runs in 17 innings. That was an ERA of 4.24, which wasn’t utterly awful. His last three starts have seen 15 earned runs in 16 innings, which is an ERA of 8.44, which is awful.

He last worked Wednesday against the Mets, one of his many former teams, and was lucky to last four innings. Over the first three, he retired seven batters and was touched for seven hits.

Colon is 43. He weighs 300 pounds, give or take. He throws his two-seamer, the pitch he delivers most often, at 88.1 mph. (This according to Brooks Baseball.) That’s slower than Jacob deGrom, who started Wednesday’s game for the Mets, throwing his changeup.

After watching Colon get manhandled by the Mets, Howie Rose, the Mets’ radio play-by-play man, said: “He had games like this with us. He’d get hit hard and you’d look up in the seventh inning and he’d still be out there.” The Braves would take that. Indeed, that’s what they were hoping to get when they paid $12.5 million for his services.

They haven’t gotten it lately — only one quality start in his past five — which isn’t to say they won’t. The world is full of people who’ve said “Bartolo Colon has nothing left,” and he’s still a well-paid starting pitcher. (Last year he was an All-Star.) Colon is the oldest player in the major leagues. — MARK BRADLEY