Chris Bassitt toed the rubber against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday looking to build off the excellent start to his career as a New York Met.
The 33-year-old came into the game after turning in two quality starts against the Washington Nationals and Arizona Diamondbacks. In those starts he picked up two wins after allowing one run, five hits, and three walks in 12 innings. However, Bassitt did not experience the same success against the Giants.
In the first inning, Bassitt allowed a leadoff single to Mike Yastrzemski on a weakly-hit fly ball to left field. Bassitt got some help with his next batter faced as Francisco Lindor chased down another weak fly ball to shallow left field.
The wheels came off in the inning after the out. Bassitt let Darin Ruf reach on a nine-pitch walk. Then with two runners on, Joc Pederson lined a double to right field to score the first two runs of the game, shooting Bassitt’s ERA up from 0.75 to 2.19 in the process. Brandon Crawford and Wilmer Flores each followed with base hits which brought Pederson around to score the third run of the game for the Giants.
Pitching coach Jeremy Hefner gave Bassitt a visit on the mound and he responded by getting the final two outs of the inning thanks to a fielder’s choice and a groundball force out.
The Giants succeeded in making contact off Bassitt in the first but did not hit him too hard as five of the seven balls put in play had an exit velocity of 72 MPH or less.
“It looked like they were committed to the inner half and not getting beat in there,” Hefner said after the game in regard to Bassitt’s first inning. “Chris did a really good job against the Diamondbacks of commanding the inner half of the plate against the lefties. It was very apparent that [the Giants] weren’t gonna get beat in there, and we kept going to the well maybe a little bit too often and they were able to sneak some balls through.”
Bassitt started out the second inning better than the first as he got the first two batters faced out on a swinging strikeout and groundout to second. He couldn’t quite settle in though as Brandon Belt celebrated his birthday by hitting a 376-foot home run to right field to give the Giants a 4-0 lead. Bassitt rebounded by getting Ruf to pop out to first.
The third inning was a relatively short one for Bassitt. After allowing another base hit to Pederson to start off the inning, he used ten pitches to induce a couple of groundouts and a flyout.
In the fourth, Bassitt’s first pitch of the inning was hit out to left field by Steven Duggar for a base hit. Duggar quickly moved to second on a wild pitch. Bassitt picked up his second strikeout of the game after getting Joey Bart to swing on a 78 MPH slider in the low corner of the zone. He then allowed his fifth run of the game as Yastrzemski lined an RBI single to right field. Bassitt closed out the inning by mixing in a sinker, curveball, cutter, and four-seam fastball to strike out Belt on four pitches.
Bassitt figured things out in the fifth inning, as it was his best frame of the night by far. It took him only 11 pitches to get Ruf, Pederson, and Crawford all to strike out swinging.
Bassitt’s efficient fifth inning kept his pitch count low enough to go out for a sixth inning. The success he found in the fifth carried over to the sixth as he had another 1-2-3 inning. While he struck out the side in the fifth, he got all three batters faced to groundout in the sixth.
Overall, Bassitt allowed eight hits, one walk, and five runs (one home run) on 97 pitches in his six innings of work. The outing shot his league-leading 0.75 ERA up to 3.00 and increased his WHIP from 0.667 to 0.944.
The Giants got hits off five of Bassitt’s six pitches, with his slider being the exception. His slider became his best put away pitch of the game, as three of his six strikeouts came from the pitch.
Bassitt relied the most on his sinker throughout the game which he threw at a season-high 32 percent rate. He did not have tremendous success with the pitch early on as he gave up three hits off it in the first three-plus innings. However, after allowing the third of those three hits at the beginning of the fourth inning, he was able to utilize the pitch more efficiently. He threw 18 more sinkers (16 of which were for strikes) for the rest of the game, which resulted in four outs induced and no hits.
The final two innings of his outing were great, but Bassitt did not consider it a silver lining.
“This one won’t feel good,” Bassitt said. “I’m not gonna take any positives from this one.”
Bassitt will look to rebound when he takes the mound again next week in St. Louis against the Cardinals.
