MIAMI — The best vantage point from which to truly appreciate how Bartolo Colon pitches is behind home plate. Focus on the ball, as a batter would, even though it temporarily disappears behind Colon’s head as he prepares to throw.

Of course, the pitch is going to be a fastball anyway — no one in baseball throws as many of them as he does — and at a pedestrian velocity, so there is still a chance for the batter to get a good swing at it. Yet when the ball suddenly reappears after it leaves Colon’s hand, there is a good chance it will remain a little mystifying.

When you swing at one of Colon’s pitches, said A. J. Ellis, the veteran Philadelphia catcher, “your eyes immediately go to the scoreboard because you don’t know if it was a fastball or changeup.”

Either way, Ellis said, he is often left asking himself, “What the heck is going on?”

Actually, that is what a lot of people who follow baseball are asking these days, because nothing involving Colon makes any sense anymore. I wondered how Colon perceived his own skills, so as a native Spanish speaker I asked him over several weeks about his approach.