Cleveland Guardians

Bartolo Colon returns to the city where his career started 19 years ago

Published Apr. 14, 2016 7:15 p.m. ET

foxsports

The New York Mets and Cleveland Indians entered the season with much hype surrounding their respective rotations, though the short-term fate of one young New York hurler is expected to be determined sometime during their weekend series.

Bartolo Colon, the ageless veteran of the Mets' rotation, will try to build on an outstanding first start and lead the club to back-to-back victories Friday night when he returns to the city where his career began 19 years ago.

New York's young starting staff finished with MLB's fourth-best ERA at 3.44 in 2015 before leading the club to its first World Series appearance since 2000. All-Star Jacob deGrom, however, had his last turn skipped and could go on the disabled list due to lat tightness if he's unable to throw comfortably at Progressive Field on Friday.

Despite the setback, Mets starters have continued last year's success by limiting opponents to one or no runs in five of their past seven outings. Logan Verrett filled in nicely in Wednesday's no-decision, allowing three hits over six scoreless innings of a 2-1 home victory over Miami that snapped a four-game losing streak.

Now the Mets (3-5) will give the ball to Colon after he allowed one run and struck out seven over six innings of a 1-0 home loss to Philadelphia on Saturday. The 42-year-old right-hander's fastball reached 92 mph.

Colon threw much harder as a 20-year-old when the Indians signed him out of the Dominican Republic. He went 85-49 with a 3.85 ERA from 1997-2002 for Cleveland, where he hasn't pitched since a 9-2 loss while with Oakland in May 2013.

"It will be a great privilege and a great moment for me to return back to where it all started," Colon told the league's official website.

The Indians, who last year had the AL's fourth-best ERA among starting staffs at 3.94, was projected to join the Mets as one of the league's top rotations behind the top four of Danny Salazar, Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber and Cody Anderson.

The Indians (4-3) have pitched that well of late, getting a 1.91 ERA from their starters over the past five games. Salazar allowed three hits over six innings Thursday as Cleveland took two of three at Tampa Bay with a 6-0 victory.

After turning in a 3.05 ERA in 15 starts as a rookie, Anderson was in line to win after allowing two runs over six innings in Saturday's season debut before Bryan Shaw gave up five runs in a frigid 7-3 road loss to the Chicago White Sox.

Anderson will get his first look at a New York team that has scuffled with a .178 average while totaling eight runs over its last five games. Travis d'Arnaud has gone just 2 for 19 so far while leadoff man Curtis Granderson is 3 for 31.

''There's a lot of teams that get off to great starts and falter," manager Terry Collins said. "There's teams that get off to slow starts that have huge second halves and run away with stuff."

Cleveland's Rajai Davis and Tyler Naquin had three hits apiece Thursday while Marlon Byrd went 2 for 3 with a home run. Byrd, a former Mets outfielder, has gone 6 for 14 with a pair of homers lifetime off Colon.

New York has won eight of the 12 all-time meetings.