Chris Bassitt’s struggles continue as Mets drop series in San Diego with a blowout loss

The Mets were crushed by the Padres for the second straight night, this time falling 13-2 at the hands of a five-run fourth inning against Chris Bassitt, a four-run fifth inning against Stephen Nogosek, and a strong outing from Sean Manaea.

The Mets’ lineup was lacking Pete Alonso and Starling Marte and it showed. They were almost completely shut down by Sean Manaea, managing just one hit off Manaea through his first six innings of work—a drag bunt single by Jeff McNeil in the second inning. The Mets finally did scratch a couple of runs off Manaea in the seventh inning, but the damage had already been done at that point.

This one was over early due to a poor starting performance from Chris Bassitt and a poor relief outing from Stephen Nogosek. Bassitt surrendered one run apiece in the first and third innings, but managed to limit the damage in those frames due to some timely strikeouts. That was not the case in the fourth inning, however, which unraveled on Bassitt rather quickly. The Padres loaded the bases with nobody out on a single, a walk, and a bunt single. Bassitt bounced back to strike out Sergio Alcántara for the first out—his sixth strikeout of the night. But, Jurickson Profar delivered the key RBI single that doubled the Padres’ lead to 4-0 and they just kept piling on after that. Jake Cronenworth followed with a double that further extended the Padres’ lead to 6-0, which signaled the end of Bassitt’s night.

Stephen Nogosek came in the game for mop-up duty and poured gasoline on the fire. He gave up an additional RBI double to Manny Machado that poured a little extra salt in the wound that was Chris Bassitt’s final line (6 ER in 3 ¹⁄₃ IP), but he also went on to give up plenty of runs of his own as well. The Padres piled on four more runs off Nogosek in his second inning of work, punctuated by a three-run homer by Jake Cronenworth.

After Adam Ottavino tossed a 1-2-3 sixth inning, the Padres tacked on yet two more runs off Joely Rodríguez in the seventh. Khalil Lee made his 2022 Mets debut in the form of a pinch hitting appearance against Nabil Crismatt in the eighth, in which he nearly legged out an infield hit, but was thrown out at first base by a hair. Buck Showalter opted to give Francisco Lindor some rest at the end of this lopsided game, which resulted in the rather amusing defensive alignment of Patrick Mazeika at first base, Eduardo Escobar at second base, Luis Guillorme at shortstop, and J.D. Davis at third base for the final two innings. Seth Lugo worked around two hits to pitch a scoreless eighth inning for the Mets and Crismatt negotiated traffic in his second inning of work in the ninth to close things out for the Padres.

The Mets have an off day tomorrow as they look to put the ugliness of this game behind them before facing off against the scuffling Angels for a weekend series in Anaheim, which includes a reunion with Noah Syndergaard.

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Jeff McNeil, +0.9% WPA
Big Mets loser: Chris Bassitt, -26.9% WPA
Mets pitchers: -28.4% WPA
Mets hitters: -21.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Brandon Nimmo’s walk in the third inning (yes, seriously), +1.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Manny Machado’s RBI double in the third inning, -13.4% WPA