On Tuesday night, Bartolo “Big Sexy” Colón took the hill for the Texas Rangers against the Los Angeles Dodgers in an interleague matchup for his 14th appearance this year. His longevity and success has allowed him to close in on some major milestones during his 21st major-league season, including most victories for a Dominican-born pitcher and 2,500 career strikeouts. Colón did earn his 2,500th strikeout during the first inning, but he only lasted 3.1 innings versus the Dodgers, giving up eight runs on nine hits. The Dodgers went on to steamroll the Rangers by a score of 12-5. Texas currently owns a record of 27-42, good for last place in the AL West, 16.5 games behind the Seattle Mariners.
Colón will likely next pitch during the Rangers’ road series versus Kansas City next week, which will probably be as good a shot as any to move ahead of high-kicking Hall of Famer Juan Marichal for most wins by a Dominican-born MLB pitcher (currently 243). Kansas City is currently in last place in the woeful American League Central with a record of 22-45, 14 games behind the 35-30 Cleveland Indians. All of the teams in this division other than Cleveland have records under .500.
Below is a video of the MLB Tonight panel discussing the career of Juan Marichal and Bartolo Colón’s milestones (while also trying to fit in the Dodgers’ injury woes). One of the meatheads then denies Colón is a potential Hall of Famer because he doesn’t have electric stuff. This is more evidence for my belief that baseball award voters are biased against non-power pitchers (Kyle Hendricks was robbed of the 2016 NL Cy Young Award – his ERA+ was 196, while winner Max Scherzer had an ERA+ of 144). However, one of the panel members brings up that Colón has a history of a failed PED test, which is much more likely to be an issue for HOF voters than his lack of “stuff”.
Colón’s Texas Rangers are next scheduled to open a weekend interleague series at home against the Colorado Rockies at 8:05 PM ET on Friday (Tickets – SeatGeek).
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