Chris Bassitt goes eight innings in return to Oakland as Mets rout A's
The Mets' Chris Bassitt pitches against the Athletics during the sixth inning of a game in Oakland, Calif., on Friday. Credit: AP/Godofredo A. Vasquez
OAKLAND, Calif. — Chris Bassitt, looser than most pitchers on the day they start, had a good time Friday afternoon. He caught up with former teammates who welcomed him in his first trip back since the Athletics traded him in March, and he chatted with current teammates about — wait for it — fantasy football.
When he walked over to his locker, where neighbor Edwin Diaz began to move because he had his feet up on Bassitt’s chair, Bassitt told him no sweat, stay comfy. A few Mets expressed shock that this stadium’s facilities are as bad as their reputation suggested. Bassitt laughed knowingly, bragging that his years here toughened him up.
“I try not to take this game too seriously and just understand the job at hand,” he said. “And basically just try to make it, to the best of my ability, a good day that day.”
Then Bassitt went out and had a good time Friday night, too. In the Mets’ 9-2 shellacking of the Athletics, he lasted a season-high-tying eight innings and allowed two runs, effective and efficient throughout.
That along with another Atlanta loss to Philadelphia boosted the Mets’ lead in the NL East to 2 1⁄2 games, their largest since Sept. 2. Their magic number — the combined number of Mets wins and Atlanta losses that would clinch the division for the Mets — is nine.
Bassitt escaped two-out trouble in the first inning — Sean Murphy’s single and Seth Brown’s walk — and retired 15 of his next 16 batters. Oakland (55-96) managed a run in the seventh, on Murphy’s double and Brown’s single, and another in the eighth, on Dermis Garcia’s homer, but by then it barely mattered.
Bassitt was feeling his sinker — throwing it for half of his pitches, well above his average this year of less than one-third of his pitches — while still mixing in his curveball, cutter, changeup, four-seamer and slider. Instead of going for strikeouts (he had just two), he let the A’s hit the ball to his defenders, inducing lots of soft batted balls that turned into outs.
Bassitt didn’t like that one of his better remaining friends, Brown, had an RBI and that his former catcher, Murphy, had two hits. But he did like pitching again at Oakland Coliseum, which is generally dreaded by major-leaguers. Bassitt’s 2.43 ERA here is a full run lower than his career mark.
“I really like this ballpark just in the aspect that I feel like a lot of guys don’t around the league,” he said. “If you don’t like being in a spot, it’s a big advantage if I do like being there.”
Manager Buck Showalter didn’t plan to leave him in for all but one inning, but Bassitt had thrown so few pitches — he finished at 91 — that Showalter wanted him to keep working to build his endurance.
“He had some early-count outs, his pitch count was down,” Showalter said.
Mets hitters, meanwhile, provided more than enough support. Brandon Nimmo, back in the lineup a game after exiting because of a tight left quadriceps, went 2-for-4 with two RBIs before getting taken out of the blowout in the seventh inning. Eduardo Escobar hit a grand slam. Jeff McNeil (3-for-4, RBI) and Mark Vientos (2-for-3, first career double, two RBIs) also had big games.
Five runs in the fifth knocked out Cole Irvin, the first of three lefthanded starters the A’s are throwing at the Mets this weekend. Escobar hit his grand slam, the first of his career and the second of the Mets’ week, and Vientos added an RBI double. Irvin’s line: 4 2⁄3 innings, eight runs.
Escobar is hitting .329 with seven homers and 17 RBIs in September.
“He’s an easy guy to show confidence in because he cares so much and he works hard at his trade,” Showalter said. “It does a lot for a team when a guy like him repays the confidence that his teammates have in him.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
