ANAHEIM, Calif. – Trouble struck Chris Bassitt before he’d even thrown his first pitch against the Los Angeles Angels. Failed by his PitchCom transmitter as he tried to relay his call to catcher Alejandro Kirk, a pitch-clock violation left him down a ball to Taylor Ward. The right-hander then signalled to Kirk that he call the game instead, the timer counted down toward a second ball and eventually manager John Schneider had to charge out so Bassitt could change his transmitter, which he declined in the end.
Up and running, the violation proved costly when Ward worked a full-count walk and on the next pitch, Bassitt missed middle-middle with an-89.9 m.p.h. fastball that was supposed to be down and in. Mike Trout cranked it 441 feet at 112.3 m.p.h. off a truck in left-centre field.
Big yikes, especially after the thumping he took in his Toronto Blue Jays debut last weekend.
This time, however, Bassitt kept his outing on the rails, recovering to allow only one more run, an unearned one at that, over what finished as six crafty innings of work. That kept the margin close enough for the Blue Jays to rally, which they did on a Bo Bichette three-run homer in the seventh inning that provided the difference in a 4-3 victory Friday night.
Bichette’s second homer of the season, off reliever Jimmy Herget, erased a 3-1 deficit and stunned a crowd of 44,375 at the Angels’ home opener. The 415-foot drive to left-centre came after a leadoff Santiago Espinal single and two-out George Springer base hit through the 3-4 hole and helped masked some sloppy play earlier in the game.
In the top of the fourth, the Blue Jays cut into a 2-0 deficit on Espinal’s run-scoring fielder’s choice but then ran themselves out of the inning on a botched delayed double steal, with Matt Chapman eventually thrown out home.
Then, in the bottom half, a Kirk throwing error on a Gio Urshela steal attempt at second helped move the infielder to third base and eventually set up a David Fletcher safety squeeze that put the Angels back up 3-1. A good throw to second would likely have had Urshela easily.
Regardless, Bassitt helped keep a lid on the Angels, shaking off the nine-run, four-homer, 3.1-inning beatdown he took from the St. Louis Cardinals in his debut. He was puzzled after that game, unsure how the NL Central champions hit lasers off six different offerings, and planned to dig into his outing, but the Blue Jays also didn’t want to dig too far into a start that “was weird in a variety of different ways,” said manager John Schneider.
“He’s a really intelligent guy and he’s got a really good process about him, so making a few adjustments here and there,” he added. “A lot of it comes down to execution, as well when you look back at that game. Side session was good. We’re confident with that.”
Of note is that against the Cardinals, his curveball came out of a distinctly higher release point than his other pitches.
On Friday, his release points were tighter, creating a more consistent tunel which helped keep the Angels off balance and suppressed contact.
While Trout’s homer was an absolute rocket, the average exit velocity off Bassitt was 83.1 m.p.h. and he generated nine swinging strikes, compared to four against the Cardinals.
He still needed to work around traffic as he walked five, but spread them out well enough that save for Urshela in the fourth, they didn’t hurt him. And Bassitt finished the outing with his best frame, sandwiching strikeouts of Brandon Drury and Logan O’Hoppe around an Urshela groundout.
Relievers Yimi Garcia, Erik Swanson and Jordan Romano handled things the rest of the way to lock down a fourth straight win. Swanson smartly worked around a Shohei Ohtani leadoff double in the eighth, getting flyouts from Hunter Renfroe, Jake Lamb and Drury to hold the lead.
All of which made for an end to the night much better than the start, for both Bassitt and the Blue Jays.
