VIDEO: Mets' Colon sets career high with 7th hit of season

Bartolo Colon can rake. Well, sort of.

The New York Mets pitcher recorded his seventh hit of the season Monday against the Philadelphia Phillies when he ripped a Jerad Eickhoff offering up the middle for a single.

(Courtesy: MLB.com)

With the hit, he set a career high for hits in a season. He also pushed his batting average to .146, which puts him ahead of 23 other major-league players with at least 45 at-bats this season.

Prior to this season, Colon owned a career average of .076.

The 42-year-old also had a nice night on the mound, pitching eight innings of shutout ball and striking out nine in the Mets' 3-1 win.

"It's unbelievable," Phillies outfielder Jeff Francoeur told reporters of Colon. "He knows how to pitch. Even [Greg] Maddux, late in his career, you look at him, he was able to still start and be effective. I think the one thing Bartolo does a great job of is, he can hit a gnat's [bottom]. That's his thing. When he is locating, games like tonight are what you're going to get from him."

With the outing, Colon became the oldest pitcher in Mets history to pitch eight-plus innings without allowing a run, a record previously owned by Miguel Batista.