Baby Gift

On June 18, 2015, an ex-Met pitching for the Blue Jays beat the Mets — not just any ex-Met, but beloved former Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, taking his first turn against his old club since scaling the heights of fame in Flushing. It also wasn’t just any start. Dickey’s dad Harry had died two days earlier. R.A. was headed to the bereavement list, but he had a stop to make: the mound at Rogers Centre, where he was about to go seven-and-a-third innings and give up only one run, one walk and three hits while striking out seven in beating the Mets, 7-1. The singularly articulate pitcher didn’t talk about his father’s passing after the game, leaving it to Jays manager John Gibbons to explain to reporters, “He told me he felt it was important he go out there, honor his dad.”

On June 2, 2023, an ex-Met pitching for the Blue Jays beat the Mets — not just any ex-Met, but Chris Bassitt, the last starter who took the ball in the postseason for the Mets. It also wasn’t just any start. Bassitt’s wife Jessica was in Toronto, going into labor, while the Jays were in New York, going to work. Bassitt signed a big contract in the offseason to pitch for Toronto. Toronto entered the season with big expectations. It was his turn to pitch. The logistics of a bringing a life into a world and the logistics of a major league rotation don’t always mesh. Word was Chris would make his way to a private jet as soon as he was done pitching against his old club, an assignment pushed back by another branch of Mother Nature, in the form of a 91-minute rain delay.

Bassitt versus the Mets for the Blue Jays was more effective than Bassitt versus the Padres for the Mets eight months earlier (though his four-inning stint in the Wild Card Series decider was definitely more airport departure-friendly). The Mets of 2023 dealt with their former teammate about as well as the Mets of 2015 dealt with theirs. Chris’s line was seven-and-two-thirds innings, no walks, three hits, no runs and eight strikeouts. Justin Verlander’s outing for the Mets came up a shade shy of Bassitt’s. He gave up a home run to George Springer to start the game once the game got started at 8:41 PM. That’s all it took for the Mets to be behind all night. Verlander gave up nothing else across a six-inning start that required 117 pitches, but the zeroes kept stringing along on the bottom half of the line score. On Friday night, not even a three-time Cy Young Award winner could match Bassitt.

“He wanted to pitch,” Jays manager John Schneider explained to reporters. “I’m sure there’s a million things that are going through his mind. The mental focus — which he does all the time, he’s very even-keeled — to keep everything in check was really impressive.”

As if forces were collaborating or perhaps conspiring to present a baby gift to the Bassitts, the line of zeroes remained uninterrupted, even after Schneider ended Bassitt’s evening with two outs and nobody on in the eighth. Emblematic of where the Mets weren’t going, Brandon Nimmo was called struck out by home plate ump Nic Lentz on a pitch clock violation, specifically judged two seconds too late in turning to face lefty reliever Tim Mayza amid a two-two count. In the home clubhouse afterward when he was asked about the ruling that truncated his plate appearance, Nimmo used the word “sucks” for public consumption more in one scrum than I can recall him using it across eight seasons as a Met.

That kind of night for the Mets continued in the ninth when Jeff Brigham failed to complement the fine relief work of Dominic Leone and Drew Smith. Leone threw a scoreless seventh. Smith threw a scoreless eighth. Brigham gave up a one-out single to Whit Merrifield and a two-run homer to Daulton Varsho — who lost his mother-in-law Kim to ALS, which didn’t escape his notice as MLB was commemorating Lou Gehrig Day on Friday. “It’s pretty nice to be able to have a special homer knowing that Kim’s probably watching over me and hoping everything’s the best for me,” Varsho said. A warm note for the opposition, no doubt, but from a Met perspective, Citi Field on June 2, 2023, resembled in sagged spirits Citi Field from October 9, 2022, the night Bassitt and the Mets couldn’t keep up with Joe Musgrove and the Padres…except this time, on Fireworks Night, there was a sellout crowd.

There was also a tomorrow, which is now today. The 2023 Mets will play on after losing, 3-0. Chris Bassitt won’t be in the visitors’ dugout to urge the Jays forward in their quest to make it two in a row over the Mets, however. That plane has already flown. Some teammates take precedent over other teammates. Chris wasn’t around to talk to the press after his win. Jessica and the baby-to-be’s outing was already underway; a nearby jet was idling as it awaited its Toronto-bound passenger. Schneider, following “one of the best performances we’ve seen out of anyone, given everything that he had going on” told his starter, simply, “Go be a dad.”

Last year, Chris Bassitt represented the Mets’ last, ultimately shattered defense against playoff elimination. This year, he was their daddy. Some nights you just have to accept are other people’s nights.