Mets offense disappears against Blue Jays

After a rain delay of over an hour the Mets offense dried up as they were shutout by the Blue Jays 3-0 to open the series. Chris Bassitt pitched into the 8th inning and gave up just three hits against his former team.

As for Justin Verlander, he was greeted rudely by George Springer with a leadoff home run in the first, but other than that was solid. His night ended with an emphatic strikeout in the sixth inning after he loaded the bases. It was a good bounce back outing for their other ace from his struggles in Colorado. He struck out eight in his six innings of work and gave up just the one run. He also threw 117 pitches, his highest of the season and the most he has thrown since 2019. There were a couple of incidents where he took a comebacker off his body but in both cases he seemed fine and stayed in the game.

As for the offense they had their best chance of scoring against Bassitt in the third inning. The suddenly red hot Mark Canha led off the inning with a single and after a nifty slide Francisco Álvarez set up first and third on an error. Three awful at bats by the top of the lineup later and the runners were left stranded. Both Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil sandwiched pop ups on the first pitch they saw in between a strikeout by Francisco Lindor. All night the game plan seemed to be to take early swings against Bassitt and all night it did not work.

Nimmo also suffered the indignity of striking out on a pitch clock violation after Bassitt was pulled from the game. Not Nimmo’s best night.

The Mets bullpen attempted to keep the team in the game until Jeff Brigham gave up a two-run shot in the ninth. Not that it mattered much since the Mets couldn’t muster even one run. This is now their eighth shutout loss of the season and their win streak was stopped at three.

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Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Justin Verlander +15.9%
Big Mets loser: Brandon Nimmo -16.8%
Mets pitchers: 13.7%
Mets hitters: -62.5%
Teh aw3s0mest play: Francisco Álvarez reaches on error in third
Teh sux0rest play: Daulton Varsho home run in ninth