ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Albert Pujols and the Los Angeles Angels caught up with Bartolo Colon on Sunday.
Mike Trout, Pujols and Raul Ibanez hit consecutive home runs off Colon in the first inning and the Angels routed the New York Mets 14-2.
“Anytime you can hit three home runs in a row, that’s pretty special. I’ve been through that before in my career,” Pujols said. “Everybody knows what Bartolo is going to do - 95 percent of his pitches are fastballs and he pounds the strike zone.”
Hank Conger also went deep against Colon, who won the AL Cy Young Award in 2005 with the Angels. Over the previous four seasons, he was 6-1 with a 1.75 ERA in nine starts against the Angels.
“He’s had our number, but today wasn’t his day,” Pujols said. “He’s a guy who’s aggressive in the strike zone and we executed our game plan pretty well. If you look at last year, it seemed like every time we faced him he pretty much pitched seven or eight strong innings. So we wanted to get the jump on him early.”
The Angels also hit a pair of doubles in the first inning against Colon (1-2).
Colon gave up nine runs and 11 hits in five innings, allowing at least one hit to every batter in the Angels’ starting lineup after pitching seven scoreless innings last Tuesday night in Atlanta.
“At that moment, you’re not thinking: ’Why is this happening?’ It’s just part of the game,” Colon said through a translator. “Everything felt all right. They just felt a little bit better than me.”
The four homers and nine earned runs against the 40-year-old Colon equaled a career worst in both categories.
“Even though Bartolo’s had our number, it seems like all the runs we scored off him today were the ones we’ve needed the last two years off of him,” Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson said. “He’s absolutely dominated us, and today was a complete aberration. I’ve never seen him get hit like that before in person.”
Wilson (2-1) allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings, striking out nine and walking three.
Mets third baseman David Wright and second baseman Daniel Murphy were ejected in the top of the seventh by plate umpire Toby Basner.
Wright and Murphy were called out on strikes earlier in the game. Both took exception after Basner called out Travis d’Arnaud at-bat.
It was the fourth career ejection for Wright and the first for Murphy.
“I’m not going to comment on the umpires. I’m not going to get into any more trouble than I’m already in. I’ve said my peace down on the field and I’m just going to leave it at that,” Wright said.
“We have each others’ backs. And when something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. There were some disagreements. It’s frustrating,” he said.
Wilson got seven of his strikeouts on called strikes.
“You can’t really get a scouting report on the umpires and try to change too much with that. You have to pitch to the hitters,” Wilson said. “But it wasn’t like the guy had some crazy strike zone. It’s just that they were up there looking for pitches that I wasn’t throwing, which is why they took the strike three calls.”
During the singing “God Bless America” in the seventh-inning stretch, Mets manager Terry Collins stood next to Basner at home plate. The two could be seen chatting.
The Angels came out swinging and got all three of their homers in a span of seven pitches. Trout drove his fourth of the season into the center field trees with one out and Pujols hit his third into the left field bullpen.
Ibanez, who hit a tying, three-run shot off closer Jose Valverde in the ninth inning Saturday night for his 2,000th career hit, connected against Colon before the Angels added another run on doubles by Kole Calhoun and Ian Stewart.
Stewart later homered.
NOTES: The Angels hit three straight homers for the first time since July 27, 2009, when Juan Rivera, Kendrys Morales and Mike Napoli did it. … Colon was the first Mets pitcher to yield three in a row since June 8, 2012, at Yankee Stadium, when Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones connected against Johan Santana.
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