SAN DIEGO—Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon hears you laughing at him, and he doesn’t appreciate it.

Don’t bother trying to deny it. He knows you chuckle every time he steps up to the plate. He knows the crowd roars whenever he makes contact with the ball and hauls his 285-pound frame to first base, as if his at-bats were a perverse form of absurdist performance art.

Even...