TORONTO – There was a roughly 24-hour span filled with doom and gloom for the Toronto Blue Jays but then Chris Bassitt took the mound on Sunday afternoon and completely changed that.
First off, the lead up. On Saturday, right-hander Max Scherzer exited his first start for the Blue Jays after three innings due to right lat soreness. The future Hall-of-famer sounded dejected following the team’s loss and, on Sunday morning, was placed on the 15-day injured list due to the ongoing issues caused by his right thumb.
That brought all kinds of questions about Scherzer’s future and about the Blue Jays’ pitching depth.
However, narratives can flip pretty quickly in baseball and the Blue Jays did that, at least for now, in their 3-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday in front of 21,069 at Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays executed well in many facets of the win, but it all started with Bassitt. The right-hander was hit hard and often by the Orioles and put runners on base in each of his six innings, but bared down and made pitches when it mattered, never quite breaking.
Undoubtedly, the at-bat of the game came in the fifth inning, when Bassitt faced Cedric Mullins with two on and two out and the Blue Jays clinging to a one-run lead.
Bassitt started off with a ball, before getting two strikes on the left-handed hitter. Mullins then fouled off a four-seamer and took two balls to work the count full.
Then, things got really fun.
Bassitt threw a curveball down in the zone and Mullins fouled it off. He followed with a splitter well outside that Mullins also fouled. Finally, on the ninth pitch of the plate appearance, Bassitt threw a high 91.5-m.p.h. cutter that induced a weak swing and miss from Mullins to end the drama.
The entire sequence was a nice encapsulation of the pitcher, as he threw the kitchen sink at Mullins — a cutter, curveball, four-seamer, sinker and splitter. And, when it all ended, Bassitt let out an emphatic roar before calming himself and walking back to the dugout.
In total, Bassitt allowed one run on eight hits over six innings, walking two and striking out seven. The right-hander relied mostly on his sinker but worked in seven other pitches, generating a total of 12 whiffs.
Sunday’s win, which allowed the Blue Jays to close the season-opening series with the Orioles at 2-2, featured plenty of other positives from the home side, too.
There was a nice piece of hitting from George Springer in the first inning to drive in two runs with an opposite-field single and the right fielder added a key defensive play in the third, sliding to cut off a ball before it reached the right-field wall, saving a run in the process.
And how about Tyler Heineman’s seventh-inning home run — and subsequent bat-flip — that gave the Blue Jays a needed insurance run? It was just his second home run of his career and first since Aug. 26, 2019.
Also of note was the tidy work from the Blue Jays’ bullpen, including a scoreless eighth inning from Yariel Rodriguez and a 1-2-3 ninth from closer Jeff Hoffman.
Big picture, the questions about Scherzer and the pitching depth aren’t going anywhere. But the Blue Jays were able to flip the script on what could have been a terrible weekend.
