CHICAGO -- The New York Mets are not the same team with Yoenis Cespedes missing from the lineup.
With manager Terry Collins feeling compelled to give Cespedes a break after he played three straight games with a balky right quadriceps, right-hander Kyle Hendricks mostly had his way with the Mets.
Hendricks twice struck out the side, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Mets, 6-2, in Wednesday’s rubber-game matinee at Wrigley Field.
Bartolo Colon surrendered a pair of homers to Anthony Rizzo and lasted only 4 1/3 innings. It was Colon’s shortest start of the season other than a June 21 outing against the Kansas City Royals during which he was struck with a comebacker in the right thumb and departed after four pitches.
Colon (8-5) was charged with a season-high-matching six runs on eight hits, two walks and one hit batter as his ERA climbed to 3.48. He has allowed a combined 15 runs in his past three starts after allowing 14 runs in the nine starts before that stretch.
Still, it's not like the 43-year-old Colon is in any danger of forfeiting a rotation spot. The Mets already are shorthanded, with Collins acknowledging concern about the health of Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard and with Matt Harvey having undergone season-ending surgery on Monday.
“We don’t have the options,” Collins said. “Bartolo is going to pitch. He’s going to start every five days. We have no other options right now. Right now, if he was 53, he’s going to be out there as well as he’s been pitching.”
The Mets did have runners on the corners with one out in the second, but Juan Lagares -- starting against a right-hander with Cespedes out of the lineup -- grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Mets also produced three straight two-out singles in the fourth, but came away empty when center fielder Jason Heyward threw out James Loney at the plate to end the frame. In the seventh, immediately after Hendricks departed with two aboard and one out, Carl Edwards coaxed an inning-ending double-play grounder out of Michael Conforto.
In addition to Cespedes sitting out, Collins also rested his middle-infield tandem of Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker on Wednesday.
Collins gave the duo the rest despite the Mets heading into a day off, which they will spend on Thursday in Miami. The Mets then play a weekend series against the Marlins, who occupy the National League’s second wild-card spot. Logan Verrett (3-6, 4.21 ERA) will face left-hander Adam Conley (6-5, 3.61) in Friday’s opener.
“They’re tired,” Collins said about Cabrera and Walker. “Asdrubal came in and said, ‘Look, I’m fine.’ But this series, going into Miami, is going to be really big for us. And then we go home and we’ve got the Cardinals. We’ve got a big home series. I said, ‘I want you guys to be as fresh as you can.' [Walker] has had a tough month. And, as I told Asdrubal last night, he’s on pace for 158 games right now. So a day off in a day game after a night game is nothing.”
Substitute Wilmer Flores finally got the Mets on the scoreboard in the eighth with a two-run homer against left-hander Travis Wood. It was Flores’ seventh homer in July, tied for the most in the majors, although he has mostly been relegated to the bench of late. Flores is hitting .228 (28-for-123) against right-handed pitching and .333 (18-for-54) against left-handed pitching this season.
Collins noted that the Mets started taking off last season around this time when players such as Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe and Flores were strategically plugged into the lineup against appropriate matchups to rest starters.
“We’ve got to use that same type of scenario that we did last year now because it worked,” Collins said.
