NEW YORK — The first thing about playing behind Chris Bassitt that comes to mind for Francisco Lindor?
“He shook a lot. The game was very slow – he always made the pace his own,” the superstar New York Mets shortstop said with a grin about his 2022 teammate. “He'd take the ball every five days and if the team needed more, he'd do that too. He always has a game-plan, understands the game, understands situations. He's a great competitor, he doesn't back down from anybody, and he brings people together.”
Thanks to PitchCom and the pitch clock, the first part of that statement no longer applies to Bassitt, but the rest of it still holds true for the 36-year-old Toronto Blue Jays right-hander, who once again returned to Citi Field to work over his former team.
Under less stressful circumstances than June 2, 2023, when he threw 7.2 shutout innings before boarding a flight to join his wife Jessica who’d gone into labour, Bassitt this time fought through a biting wind and swirling mist to strike out nine over 6.2 scoreless frames.
Another difference between then and now was in the ending, as one bullpen decision after another didn’t go to plan, turning a late 2-0 lead into a stunning 3-2 walk-off loss settled on Lindor’s sacrifice fly in the ninth, good night turning bad, with a scary moment for George Springer, who suffered lower back spasms but may have avoided serious injury, to boot.
“It's a tough game,” manager John Schneider lamented.
Their troubles began immediately after Bassitt left with two out and one on in the seventh, as Yimi Garcia took over and allowed a hit and a walk to load the bases before getting pinch-hitter Starling Marte on a groundout to escape the jam.
The extra batters Garcia faced both brought up the top of the Mets lineup in the eighth and took him out of the mix for another inning, prompting Schneider to bring in Brendon Little, who walked Lindor on four pitches and allowed a Juan Soto single to open the frame. Little recovered to get two outs before Jesse Winker, fortunate to not have had a check-swing ruled a strike, turned on a hanging curveball for a game-tying, two-run triple.
Making it costlier is that Springer, reaching up to try and snag the drive, got turned around and crashed front-first into the right-field wall. He fell to the ground, got up to throw the ball in and then dropped again, eventually needing the help of trainer Jose Ministral and Schneider to walk off the field. He suffered lower back spasms on the play and is to be re-evaluated Sunday.
All the while Nick Sandlin replaced Little and struck out Mark Vientos to escape the eighth, but after Edwin Diaz struck out both Anthony Santander and Andres Gimenez after one-out singles by Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to end the top of the ninth, Sandlin issued a one-out walk to Jose Siri and a wild pitch advanced him to second before a Luis Torrens single. Schneider turned to Jeff Hoffman at that point and Lindor’s line drive into centre field was deep enough to score the winning run before a crowd of 37,694.
"Having Yimi there in the seventh, just to kind of clean that up, wish it was a little bit more efficient, he may go back out,” Schneider said of how he lined up the late innings. “We're asking guys to just fit in their spots. And late I think there were pitches between both Brendon and Nick, probably they want back, with some walks. So, wanted Yimi towards the bottom, trusted Brendon to get in there at the top and did a good job against Pete (Alonso). The leadoff walk doesn't help. Wanted to lead with Hoff (in the 10th) and felt Little struck Winker out, to be honest with you, (in the eighth) with the check swing.”
None of that matters if, “we're counting on the guys to get the outs we think they're going to get” and they don’t, said Schneider. When Garica didn’t get Brett Baty and Siri, the Blue Jays were “trying to gauge the stress of his outing” because “it's always tough, especially early, to send a guy back out” for a second inning. “You're kind of reading what's going on in real time a little bit. When you get out of a jam like that, you try to get a fresh arm in there.”
The late leverage drama was in stark contrast to the way Bassitt kept the game under his thumb.
He stranded a Lindor leadoff double in the first and a Winker double to open the second, cruising through the next four innings before leaving after a two-out Vientos single in the seventh, allowing only four hits with nine strikeouts.
Applying a mindset he picked up from former A’s teammate Sonny Gray – “If they're going to score one, score one, but don't score three or four, keep us in the game” – to the early-inning jams helped.
"Early in the game I'm pretty comfortable – and I'm not saying this lightly – giving up runs in that spot,” said Bassitt. “I learned a long time trying to not let that guy score, so to speak, all of a sudden you give up three or four because you walk a guy or whatever it may be. If they can move him over and drive him in, then OK, but you've got to focus your attention on the hitter and just try to get the hitter out. What's done is done on the basepaths.”
Guerrero opened the scoring in the fifth with an RBI single off José Buttó, who was trying to clean up Griffin Canning’s mess but ended up loading the bases only to get Alejandro Kirk swinging and Springer on a groundout to limit the damage.
Bichette’s two-out RBI double in the sixth made it a 2-0 game, but the Blue Jays squandered chances to add on and increase their margin for error.
"I thought we had a good game, just an unfortunate ending,” said Bichette. “I thought we competed well, pitched well. Stuff happens.”
It certainly does, especially, it seems, when Bassitt returns to pitch at Citi Field, previously for the better, more recently for the worse.
