The Mets have now been hit 18 times this season, seven more than the Orioles, Padres, and Rockies, the next highest mark in the league.
If you ask Chris Bassitt, New York’s starter on Tuesday night, it has everything to do with the current baseballs, which players have been vocal about over the past three years.
“I had some close calls tonight. I've been hit in the face, I don't ever want to do that to anybody ever,” Bassitt said. “MLB has a very big problem with the baseballs. They're bad. Everyone knows it. Every pitcher in the league knows it. They don't care. MLB doesn't give a damn about it.”
In 2019, pitchers noticed livelier baseballs that fueled the juiced ball craze, causing home runs to soar to historic rates. MLB alerted teams before this season that due to COVID-19, manufacturing wasn’t running as normal and the league spent the 2021 season using balls from both 2020 and 2021, and this season, has said it uses the same type of baseballs universally.
Bassitt doesn’t agree.
“We’ve told them our problems with them, and they don’t care,” Bassitt said. “They’re all different. the first inning, they’re decent. The third inning, they’re bad. The fourth inning, they’re OK…and we have different climates. There’s no common ground with the balls.”
Pitchers have asked for pre-tacked baseballs to counteract the league’s crackdown on sticky substances, as it has become more difficult to command pitches that have more velocity and movement than ever before. Mets hitters have caught the worst, and most painful, pieces of evidence to support that complaint from pitchers, and Bassitt’s battery mate says it’s time to get the ball straightened out before there are more serious injuries.
“It’s 2022, and there’s enough technology out there to figure out the baseballs,” James McCann said. “We want to talk about dead balls, juiced balls, slick balls, sticky balls. It’s 2022. We should have an answer.
“Sit down with players and talk about it. Sit down with players and see what players want. Don't take opinions of people that aren't the ones on the mound trying to throw it, or someone who’s not trying to stand in the box when a guy is throwing 100 mph and doesn’t have a feel for the ball.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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