Bartolo Colon has a three-game hitting streak

Don’t look now, but the pitcher we all love to watch hit because his hitting is unintentionally entertaining is now turning into an offensive threat.

Bartolo Colon, the 42-year-old right-hander with the poorly fitted helmet and seemingly hopeless swing, extended his hitting streak to three games on Saturday with a clean single against Arizona’s Chase Anderson.

Three games. If you look around the league, that’s longer than the current hitting streaks for Robinson Cano, Matt Carpenter and several other of the league’s notable hitters.

Small sample size, sure. Indicative of little, obviously. But that doesn’t make it not true.

Colon got the streak started with a single off Philadelphia’s Severino Gonzalez on May 25. He made it two straight with a ringing double against Miami’s David Phelps on May 31. Now it’s three games, which is just 53 games short of Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game hitting streak.

Colon has four hits overall this season, which is two shy of his single-season record set with the Cleveland Indians and Montreal Expos in 2002.

[Check out Big League Stew on Tumblr for even more baseball awesomeness.]

Colon’s recent offensive turnaround comes as a pleasant surprise to some and perhaps even a disappointing development to others, but the one person who isn’t surprised or disappointed is Colon himself.

He said this week that he’s completely focused on becoming a better hitter and changing the narrative. A narrative that was even driven by commissioner Rob Manfred, who said we’d miss out on the entertainment provided by Colon’s at-bats if the designated hitter were made universal. 

So far we’re seeing the results of Colon’s labor, and for a Mets team that has ranked 28th in offense since their 11-game winning streak ended, they can use all possible contributions from all possible sources with the lumber.  

More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813