Baseball has no template for the prototypical player, but Bartolo Colón stretched those boundaries. Defying age and space, he came to Queens with 16 seasons, seven teams and a Cy Young Award on his resume.
His durability and capacity to adapt allowed him to prolong his career further than most major leaguers. And at Citizens Bank Park, in his first seasons with the Mets, he reached a feat few achieve in the modern era and fewer from his native Dominican Republic have attained.
Colón allowed one run on six hits over eight innings before leaving it into the hands of the bullpen, who nearly let it slip away. But with a 5-4 New York victory, the 41-year-old had notched win No. 200.
While Colón was laying down a string of scoreless frames, the Met offense gave its pitcher a solid lead to work with. Juan Lagares, Wilmer Flores, Curtis Granderson, and Daniel Murphy each produced RBI hits in a four-run fourth. Travis d’Arnaud added a solo homer in the fifth.
Colón finally relented in the seventh when former Met Marlon Byrd took him deep. But he retired the next eight in order to seemingly solidify the milestone victory.
It almost came apart in the ninth.
Lefty Dana Eveland started the inning, yielding a lead-off double to Chase Utley and a walk to Ryan Howard. In came closer Jenrry Mejia, who promptly gave up a single to Byrd. Grady Sizemore just missed a game-tying grand slam with a double off of the wall that drove in two. Carlos Ruiz then lined out to right field for the first out, Cody Asche produced an RBI groundout, and pinch hitter Reid Brignac to strike out looking to end the game — and the suspense.
Colón joined Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez as the only Dominican-born pitchers to reach 200 wins. As far as major leaguers are concerned, he became the 92nd pitcher to get there. He would provide more moments during his time with the Mets — that home run in San Diego in 2016 foremost among them. His last major league appearance came in 2018 as a member of the Texas Rangers, at which he had totaled 247 victories.
