Mariners Win a Rare Stinker From Colon

Boston Manager Terry Francona, who will guide the American League team in Tuesday’s All-Star game, reportedly was “distraught” over leaving Red Sox pitcher Matt Clement off the AL squad so he could put Angel ace Bartolo Colon on it, a decision the Providence Journal said Major League Baseball forced Francona to make because the Angels have the league’s second-best earned-run average.

“I’m not very happy about it,” Francona told Boston reporters this week. “I’m not going to go into everything because I don’t know if I’m supposed to, but my choice -- our choice -- isn’t always the way it works out.”

Francona won’t feel any better today when he sees the box scores from Thursday’s late games on the West Coast. Colon, dominant in all but three of his first 17 starts, had his worst game of the season, giving up seven runs and seven hits in six innings of the Angels’ 10-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

An announced crowd of 43,747 in Angel Stadium saw Colon give up a pair of early two-out, three-run doubles, to Jeremy Reed in the first inning and Adrian Beltre in the second, and the Angels, winners of 15 of their previous 19 games, barely made a peep against Mariner right-hander Joel Pineiro.

Colon walked as many batters in the first two innings Thursday -- three -- as he did in his previous eight starts, a span of 57 innings. The right-hander fell to 11-5, his ERA jumped from 3.06 to 3.42, and suddenly his numbers aren’t looking that much better than Clement, who is 10-2 with a 3.85 ERA. Colon’s postgame mood pretty much matched his pitching line.

“Literally, I am as [ticked] off at myself as I’ve ever been, pardon my language, for getting into situations where I should have gotten the next guy and couldn’t get the job done,” Colon said. “I got into situations where I tried to do too much after two outs. My stuff was not the same, and it hurt me.... I don’t feel very good about myself right now.”

Neither did his teammates. If Thursday night’s game was a round of golf, the Angels would have taken a mulligan, and not only because of Colon’s lackluster start.

An Angel defense that went 14 games without an error from June 20 to Sunday looked shoddy, as third baseman Dallas McPherson failed to make a play on a Richie Sexson chopper that kept Seattle’s second-inning rally alive, and right fielder Vladimir Guerrero dropped a routine fly ball in the fifth.

And an Angel offense that led the major leagues with a .308 average in June and posted double-figure hit totals in 22 of 33 games, managed only two runs and six hits against Pineiro, a right-hander who entered with a 2-4 record and 5.79 ERA but threw his second complete game of the season.

Colon retired the first two batters in the first inning before Raul Ibanez singled to center and Sexson singled to left. Beltre drew a walk, and Reed followed with a bases-clearing double to left-center. Willie Bloomquist’s RBI double made it 4-0.

Colon got two quick outs in the second as well, one on shortstop Maicer Izturis’ diving stop of Miguel Olivo’s grounder, but Colon walked Randy Winn and Ibanez.

Sexson followed with a high chopper toward the shortstop hole, but McPherson seemed hesitant, not sure whether to go after the ball or let Izturis make the play. The ball nicked off McPherson’s glove, and the third baseman couldn’t scoop a throw to second in time to force Ibanez.

“The rule of thumb is the third baseman should get anything he can reach,” Manager Mike Scioscia said of the chopper, which was ruled a hit. “The ball was in no-man’s land, but if [McPherson] stays aggressive, I think he makes that play. It wasn’t routine, but there might have been a little indecision that prevented Dallas from getting to the ball cleanly.”

With the bases loaded, Beltre, the former Dodger, hit a wicked liner that barely cleared second baseman Adam Kennedy’s glove and went all the way to the wall, clearing the bases for a 7-0 lead.

Colon then went into “emergency mode -- I needed to help the bullpen out by going five or six innings,” he said -- and blanked the Mariners on one hit over the next four innings.

“Bart finished strong,” Scioscia said, “but all the damage was done.”