The Mets didn’t often see Bartolo Colon as hittable as he was Wednesday night at SunTrust Park, where the Braves veteran faced his former team and gave up three doubles and a walk before recording an out.
Trailing 5-0 before the bottom of the third inning, the Braves made things slightly interesting before the Mets ended any suspense by tacking on a four-run fifth inning against reliever Josh Collmenter en route to a 16-5 win before a crowd of 22,656.
Things went from bad to blowout when the Mets scored seven runs in the eighth against relievers Eric O’Flaherty and Matt Wisler, who got rocked for a second consecutive night after giving up a ninth-inning grand slam in a Braves win Tuesday. He was expected to be optioned back to Triple-A on Thursday.
“I think the runs in the fifth were the ones that hurt the most, and then it gets out of hand in the eighth,” said manager Brian Snitker, whose Braves absorbed their worst defeat of the season, surpassing a 14-4 loss to the Nationals.
Colon (1-3) will turn 44 in three weeks and his past three starts have been a reminder that the oldest player in baseball is mortal, not an ageless pitching machine despite his performance the previous three seasons with the Mets.
He lasted four innings and gave up seven hits, five runs and two walks without a strikeout as his ERA climbed to 6.27. In his past three starts, Colon has pitched 16 innings and surrendered 28 hits, 15 runs and five walks with nine strikeouts.
“I feel like my best pitch is my sinker and to be honest, it hasn’t been sinking lately,” he said through an interpreter.
After sweeping the Padres in the first four games at SunTrust Park, the Braves have lost five of the past six at home and fell back to last place in the National League East with Wednesday’s loss. The 16 runs allowed were the most for the Braves since a 20-6 loss against the Yankees on Aug. 30, 2015.
They need a win Thursday to salvage a split of the four-game series finale before the Cardinals come to town for a three-game series. After that it’s back on the road for another three-city trip for the Braves.
Jose Reyes matched a career high with five RBIs for the Mets, whose 20 hits included nine doubles (one off a franchise record) and went 12-for-20 with runners in scoring position. They’ve won four of six games since losing 10 of 11.
Colon left with the Braves trailing 5-1, replaced by pinch-hitter Emilio Bonifacio with two on and two out in the fourth inning. Bonifacio has struggled mightily but came through with a two-run pinch-hit triple, the first triple hit at SunTrust in the 10th game played at the ballpark.
That got the Braves within 5-3, but Collmenter gave up four runs and five hits in the fifth inning capped by a two-run, two-out single by pitcher Jacob deGrom, the second run scoring on the play when Tyler Flowers dropped right fielder Nick Markakis’ throw before he could apply the tag.
“We’re climbing back into that, scoring some runs off a really tough pitcher and it’s like, OK, this is going to be all right,” Snitker said. “Boni got a big hit to get us right back in there. But we’ve just got to throw up some zeroes to give these guys a chance to come back, and we couldn’t do it.”
DeGrom had his worst start of the season, allowing eight hits, a season-high five runs and five walks in a season-low five innings — after entering with a 2.84 ERA and no starts with more than three runs allowed. He gave up five hits in two-strike counts after giving up only nine such hits before Wednesday.
But it didn’t much matter because of the hole that Colon put the Braves in and the big inning against Collmenter at precisely the point of the game where the Braves needed a shutdown inning from their bullpen.
DeGrom had not allowed more than three runs in any of his five previous starts and pitched six scoreless innings of two-hit ball against the Braves on April 5 in a 12-inning, 3-1 Braves win in which both deGrom and Colon were both gone after six innings.
Colon was impressive in that game at New York, the second game of the season, when he held his former team to two hits and one run in six innings. He also limited the Padres to one hit and one run in seven innings on April 16. But in his other four starts he’s allowed 35 hits and 21 runs in 20 innings (9.45 ERA) with seven walks and 11 strikeouts.
He got knocked around Wednesday by a Mets team that was without injured hitters Yoenis Cespedes, Lucas Duda and Wilmer Flores. Michael Conforto and Asdrubal Cabrera started the game with consecutive doubles and Jay Bruce drew a walk before Neil Walker doubled to drive in the second run of the inning.
“They’re a team that’s familiar with me, it’s the Mets,” Colon said. “They came out and were aggressive against me.”
Jace Peterson had a two-run double for the Braves, Tyler Flowers had two hits and a walk and Swanson drew a career-high three walks. Swanson has reached base in 10 consecutive games, totaling seven hits and eight walks in that span after going 1-for-20 with no walks in his previous five games.
