How New York Mets Starter Chris Bassitt Overcame Recent Struggles to Toss Gem

NEW YORK - If there was ever a starting pitcher in need of a bounce-back outing, it was Chris Bassitt.

On Tuesday night against the Milwaukee Brewers, which was the Mets' first home game in 13 days after a long 10-game west coast road trip, Bassitt hurled a gem to snap out of his recent slump.

Bassitt led the Mets to a 4-0 victory by shutting down the Brewers' offense across eight scoreless innings. The righty allowed just three hits, while striking out seven batters and issuing only one walk. He also induced three ground ball double plays and threw 77 out of his 109 pitches for strikes.

8 SCORELESS INNINGS FOR CHRIS BASSITT! pic.twitter.com/dr1qfdyprt
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 15, 2022

"Relieved, more than anything," Bassitt said afterward of his bounce-back start. "I think with the extra time we had I was able to breakdown what was going on."

According to Bassitt, it took time to get comfortable with catcher James McCann during spring training and the early part of the regular season. But after McCann went down with a broken hamate bone in mid-May, Tomas Nido became the Mets' primary catcher. At first, Bassitt and Nido didn't realize that they needed to take additional time off the field to get to know each other's tendencies more. However, after Bassitt's recent struggles, the two got together to get on the same page in order to fight out of tough in-game situations and figure out an effective game plan.

"When it came to pitching itself, I didn't make too many adjustments. This is 100 percent on me, I just thought me and Nido were completely off, just not on the same page at all," Bassitt said of Nido. "The more and more I fought, the worse and worse I did."

"It's a lot easier when he knows what I like to do in every count. I really regret not doing it a couple weeks ago, I just didn't know. I haven't really dealt with this kind of thing (before)."

Bassitt said he apologized to Nido and backup catcher Patrick Mazeika for not recognizing sooner that they needed to take extra time to get more comfortable with one another.

As Bassitt pointed out, his pitch selection this season has been "backwards" compared to the last seven years of his career prior to coming to the Mets. This is also something he dove into in between his last clunker of a start and his latest gem on Tuesday night. Luckily, Mark Canha, who was also his teammate with the Oakland Athletics, let him know that he wasn't pitching like himself, which led to Bassitt's path to breaking everything down.

Chris Bassitt says Mark Canha gave him some advice between starts:

"He's seen me the most by far out of everybody. It was moreso just like, 'You're not pitching like yourself at all.' So I just broke down everything." pic.twitter.com/zMjhWpWiHW
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 15, 2022

After producing a 7.62 ERA across his past five outings, Bassitt lowered his ERA on the season from 4.35 to 3.89.

Since ace Max Scherzer landed on the IL May 19, Bassitt has filled in as the team's No. 1 starter. In his latest start, he pitched like the ace he previously looked like in his first seven starts of the year, before Scherzer's injury.

Bassitt's offense provided him with enough support, as National League RBI leader Pete Alonso knocked in two more runs to increase his season total to 59. Eduardo Escobar added a sacrifice-fly in the bottom of the first and Jeff McNeil had an RBI double in the bottom of the third.

The Mets are now 41-22 and have a five game lead in the NL East.

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