Bartolo Colon

For a significant clue as to how Bartolo Colon is faring today, check the Angel Stadium radar gun -- if you can. In his lone home start this season, the radar gun readings were not displayed on the scoreboard -- at Colon's request, according to Angels spokesman Tim Mead. Colon gave up eight runs in two innings to the New York Yankees that day.

In the box score, Bartolo Colon pitched well. The radar gun, however, offered evidence that Colon might not have fully recovered from his shoulder injury last year. In his first minor league rehabilitation start, Colon threw four shutout innings for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday, giving up two hits and one walk and striking out three. The stadium radar gun clocked most of his fastballs from 87 to 91 mph, significantly below the 95 mph that signifies his top form.

As if Bartolo Colon needed another painful reminder of how his 2005 season ended, the right-hander will get one Sunday when he starts against the Yankees in Angel Stadium. Colon was pitching at home against the Yankees last October when he suffered the slight shoulder tear that knocked him out of Game 5 of the American League division series and out of the playoffs.

It begins today when Bartolo Colon, the 2005 American League Cy Young Award winner, starts the Angels' season opener against the Mariners in Safeco Field. The ball will then be handed to John Lackey, a young but seasoned right-hander who is looking to build on his breakthrough 2005 season, and Lackey will pass it to Jeff Weaver, a veteran innings-eater and control specialist known for his ability to keep his team in games.

The radar gun readings confirm that Bartolo Colon isn't quite all the way back from the slight shoulder tear that knocked the Angel ace out of last October's American League championship series.

General Manager Bill Stoneman said he "hasn't ruled out" petitioning Major League Baseball to bar pitchers Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar from the World Baseball Classic by today's deadline, but after watching the right-handers throw their third bullpen sessions of the spring Monday, Stoneman was "encouraged" by their progress. "The real question to me is will they be ready in time for that first round," Stoneman said.

Bartolo Colon began throwing last week for the first time since a shoulder injury knocked him out of the American League championship series in October, and the Angel ace is scheduled to throw off a mound Feb. 1, two weeks before spring training begins. The Angels sent two trainers to the Dominican Republic to examine Colon over the weekend, and General Manager Bill Stoneman said the AL Cy Young Award winner's rehabilitation from a shoulder strain has gone as scheduled.

There was no way this part of Tuesday's conference call to introduce Angel pitcher Bartolo Colon as the American League Cy Young Award winner was going to get lost in translation. "Loco, loco, loco," Colon said, when asked to describe the scene in Altamira, the tiny farming town on the Dominican Republic's mountainous north coast, where the right-hander grew up and spends most of his winters.

Bartolo Colon has spoken to reporters after every start for two seasons, he has been accessible, cordial and candid to the media, but the Angel right-hander is so distraught about the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the American League championship series that he has declined interview requests since the series began. "He's definitely bummed," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "He realizes what our need was for him to do what he can do.

Bartolo Colon will undergo an MRI test today to determine the severity of the damage in his right shoulder, but the early returns on the Angel ace, who was pulled from Monday night's division series Game 5 against the New York Yankees in the second inning, were not very encouraging. Colon felt so much discomfort Monday night and Tuesday that the Angels left the right-hander off their American League championship series roster, replacing him with reliever Esteban Yan.