Aging Colon throwing like young ace

BALTIMORE

Zach Britton sure looked legitimate Wednesday. The 23-year-old lefty limited the second-best offense in the American League to an unearned run in seven innings. This once-proud baseball city should get excited about him.

Yet with all due respect, plenty of teams have a young stud pitcher. It's exciting but hardly unique.

The Yankees? No phenom arms at the major-league level, but they can boast of something that no other club has.

They have themselves the game's only zombie freak, who started in what became a 4-1 Yankees victory in 15 innings.

Bartolo Colon doesn't pitch like a reclamation project, a guy just getting by on wits and wile. He throws like an ace. He dominated the Orioles, throwing eight scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and one walk and striking out seven.

Alas, Joe Girardi lifted Colon (87 pitches) for Mariano Rivera in the ninth, and the legendary closer gave up a run -- his second blown save in Baltimore this year.

The Yankees are trying to crawl out of crisis mode, with one more game Thursday against the O's before returning home this weekend to take on the Mets. If not for Colon's shocking contributions this season, they'd be in pretty bad shape.

Colon, the 2005 American League Cy Young Award winner, turns 38 next week, on May 24. He didn't pitch at all last season, and it wasn't a case of, "Oh, he's having surgery, and he'll be back next year." It was more along the lines of, "I guess he's done." He hadn't clocked as many as 100 innings pitched since that award-winning '05 campaign.

Forget about being done. Right now, Colon should be the pitcher most likely to represent the Yankees in the All-Star Game. Look at it this way: He has 48 strikeouts and a 3.16 ERA in 511/3 innings. Yankees ace CC Sabathia has 50 strikeouts and a 3.47 ERA in 592/3 innings.

Colon's fastball picked up velocity as the night progressed; he was throwing 95 mph in the eighth. He also showed off a nice two-seamer and slider. Front of the rotation stuff, indeed.

We know now that Colon underwent a novel procedure last year, and that Major League Baseball is investigating the legality of it. Whatever. The rotund righthander has a better chance of being confused for Billy Wagner than he does of being disciplined by Bud Selig.

Prior to the game, Baltimore manager Buck Showalter spoke fondly of Britton as someone who isn't fazed by the big stage. He lived up to the billing with just one notable exception: Britton's bad, fourth-inning pickoff throw toward Alex Rodriguez at second base allowed A-Rod to advance to third with one out. Rodriguez scored on Nick Swisher's sacrifice fly to rightfield.

Britton now has a 2.14 ERA. He looks like he can be a bona fide ace. His best days should be ahead of him.

Colon? The last of his best days came five years ago. When the Yankees signed him to a minor-league contract over the winter, fans either scoffed -- "Why are we signing this has-been?" -- or shrugged -- "I guess there's nothing to lose, but what's the likelihood he actually helps us?"

Now, the Yankees and their fans are ultra-grateful to bench coach Tony Peña, who managed Colon in winter ball and recommended the signing. And they're wondering how much longer he can keep it going.

There's no road map for this revival. Just hope that Colon can keep bucking common sense and thrive in this second life.