Mets' bats fail to back up Chris Bassitt's strong outing in loss to Padres
The Mets' Starling Marte reacts after he struck out swinging stranding two runners on base to end the fifth inning against the Padres in an MLB game at Citi Field on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Mets’ offense has grown quiet at a most important time and in a most disturbing way.
On Saturday night against the Padres, they got an excellent pitching performance from starter Chris Bassitt but wasted it by going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position in a 2-1 loss before 39,359 at Citi Field.
The Mets (58-37) not only lost their third straight game but saw their lead over second-place Atlanta cut to a half-game. In those three losses, the Mets have scored only four runs.
San Diego’s Manny Machado drilled a two-out, two-run homer just over the leftfield fence in the sixth inning to break a scoreless tie.
The Mets still trailed by two entering the ninth, but J.D. Davis’ flare single to right made it 2-1 and put runners at the corners with two out. Tomas Nido then hit a game-ending pop-up to second baseman Jake Cronenworth.
“We’re in a place where we’re not getting the big knock to give our pitchers that margin for error,” manager Buck Showalter said.
This is the second time this season the Mets have lost three straight; they have not lost four in a row.
When Machado came to bat in the sixth, Bassitt got ahead 0-and-2. His next pitch was a slider that appeared to clip the top of the strike zone but was called a ball. The next pitch was a slider on which Machado hit a 107-mph laser for his 16th home run.
“I saw that [0-and-2] pitch like everyone else, but it’s part of the game,” Bassitt said. “It’s OK that he [umpire Jim Wolf] missed it. I’ve just got to make a much better pitch . . . after that. That was a terrible pitch.”
Said Showalter, “I haven’t looked at it. They [the umps] make 300 decisions back there and you can be pretty picky . . . We made a mistake to a good hitter after the fact. There’s a lot of things we could have done to make that [missed call] not matter.”
Bassitt retired the first 12 Padres he faced with only 38 pitches and ended up completing seven innings. He allowed the two runs, four hits and a hit batter and tied a career high with 11 strikeouts. He also struck out 11 on Sept. 7, 2019, against Detroit when he was with Oakland.
In his last six starts, Bassitt (7-7) has a 2.43 ERA and has walked five and struck out 41 in 40 2⁄3 innings but is 3-3.
“A lot of times when you have that much time off, eight or nine days, you don’t know how the feel is going to be,” Showalter said of Bassitt. “But he had good command . . . He gave us a chance, a really good chance . . . We had some opportunities. We put some people out there. We just couldn’t get that hit to put us over the hump.”
The only other highlights for the Mets were Pete Alonso going 3-for-4, Davis’ run-scoring single in the ninth and a nifty sliding catch by Starling Marte in rightfield during the fifth inning with a runner at second base.
The Mets stranded two runners at third base and four at second. They had a runner in scoring position in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings and came away empty in all of them.
In the second inning, Luis Guillorme hit into an inning-ending double play. In the third, Marte struck out with Davis at third base. In the fourth, with Alonso at second, Mark Canha grounded out and Eduardo Escobar flied out. And in the fifth, Marte had another inning-ending strikeout, this time with runners at first and second.
San Diego starter Blake Snell (2-5) got all those big outs in going five innings. Three San Diego relievers got the 2-0 lead to closer Taylor Rogers for the ninth. Though he allowed the run, he recorded his league-leading 28th save.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
