Bassitt busts Brewers’ bats

After a a long, tough road trip out west, the Mets remembered tonight that there’s nothing like some home cooking. The Mets rode Chris Bassit’s signature start so far in the orange and blue to a 4-0 victory over the Brewers. Bassitt was basically in control from the word go, striking out seven over eight shutout innings, allowing only three hits and a walk all evening.

On the offensive side, the Mets looked thrilled to be back in the eastern time zone and got going right away. As they have done so much this year, the Mets hitters made the opposing starter—Adrian Houser tonight—throw a myriad of pitches early on, and the offense broke through in the first inning with some well-placed hits.

Brandon Nimmo started it off with a great 9-pitch at bat ending in a double into the right-center gap. Starling Marte followed with an infield hit, and after Francisco Lindor moved both runners over with a ground out, Pete Alonso laced a single to right to score Nimmo. Jeff McNeil would follow with a doink shot off the pitcher’s glove into no-man’s land, which scored Marte from third and, because the infield was drawn in for some reason, allowed McNeil to get all the way to second base and thus get credited with a double on a ball that never got more than a few feet past the infield dirt. Eduardo Escobar then got the final run of the inning home on a sac fly.

Alonso later added another RBI single in the 5th, his 2nd RBI of the night and league-leading 59th on the season, to extend the lead out to 4-0.

That was more than enough for Bassitt, who was quick and efficient all night. He was helped by double play balls in the third, fifth, and sixth innings; the latter two both got Bassitt out of jams with runners in scoring position, which were the only two times the Brewers had runners past first base all night. Bassitt desperately needed this start after he had gotten hit around over the past month, and he lowered his ERA all the way down to a much more respectable 3.89.

Drew Smith finished it off with a 1-2-3 ninth and the Mets secured their 10th shutout of the season and their NL-leading 41st victory to stay at least 5.0 games up over the surging Braves, pending the outcome of their game against the Nationals tonight. The Mets also improved to 19 games over .500, matching their high-water mark for the season, with another chance to get to 20 games over tomorrow night.

Box scores

ESPN
MLB

Win Probability Added

Fangraphs

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Chris Bassitt, +27.6% WPA
Big Mets loser: Tomás Nido, - 1.8% WPA
Mets pitchers: +28.8% WPA
Mets hitters: +21.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jeff McNeil hits an RBI double in the first inning, +7.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Christian Yelich hits a single in the sixth inning, -4.1% WPA

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