ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Bartolo Colon thought all was OK as he took the mound in the first inning.
Then the Angels stepped to the plate.
Colon gave up consecutive home runs by Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Raul Ibanez in the first inning, setting the tone for the Mets’ 14-2 loss on Sunday in the decisive game of their interleague series.
“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.”
Colon (1-2) 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 innings of six-hit ball last Tuesday during a 4-0 victory in Atlanta.
The four homers and nine earned runs against Colon equaled a career worst in both categories. It was the fifth time the 17-year veteran allowed four home runs in a game and the first time since June 7, 2009, with the White Sox against Cleveland.
“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.”
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.
“Anytime you can hit three home runs in a row, that’s pretty special,” Pujols added.
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 and both took exception with Basner’s strikeout call with Travis d’Arnaud at-bat. It was the fourth career ejection for Wright and the first for Murphy.
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.
“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,” Wright said.
Wilson got seven of his nine 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.”
Wilson (2-1) allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings with three walks. The Angels have scored 23 runs in the left-hander’s last two starts, including a 9-1 victory last Monday at Houston.
NOTES: Colon was the first Mets pitcher to yield three homers in a row since June 8, 2012, at Yankee Stadium, when Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones connected against Johan Santana. … Two of the Angels’ runs came on wild pitches by Scott Rice and John Lannan.
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