Coming off a three-game sweep of the Phillies, New York welcomed the Blue Jays to Citi Field where the Mets won eight straight.
The mini winning streak had been on the backs of the Mets starting rotation, and that continued Friday night with Justin Verlander on the mound. However, George Springer led off the game with a solo homer to put the Jays up 1-0 which proved to be enough for starter Chris Bassitt and the Blue Jays.
“He gave us a great chance to win,” manager Buck Showalter said of Verlander after the game. “That’s the stereotypical, give up a home run to lead off the game and put up a lot of zeros. It was the only reason we were in that game, he almost matched Bassitt.
“It’s impressive. He’s been doing it for a long time being able to dial it up to keep us in the game there. We just couldn’t push across any runs, that was the story of the game, obviously.”
Bassitt went 7.2 innings and struck out eight batters. The Mets could only muster three hits against him and Bassitt at one point retired 14 straight batters as he cruised to his sixth win of the season.
After the game, Verlander was asked if the leadoff home run was frustrating to him and he answered, “You can’t get frustrated by things like that. Home runs happen. I’m a flyball pitcher. You just have to reset and keep making pitches.”
“It was a bit of a grind but it’s not frustrating. Bassitt looked great, he had it on all night. We’ve been playing pretty good baseball. This is just one of those days,” Verlander added. “We had a good fight, it was a good game, we were in it the whole way and didn’t come out on top. This isn’t anything to get frustrated about”
Following the homer, Verlander hunkered down and got the Mets six innings of work giving up only that one run. It took 117 pitches to do it, the most by any pitcher this season and the most Verlander has pitched since September 2019, also against the Blue Jays, but aside from being annoyed he could only go six innings, the Mets’ co-ace was thankful to be able to give his team that length.
“Thankful for the opportunity and glad I was able to come through,” he said. “That’s how you win those types of ball games and not go to the bullpen too early. Obviously it didn’t change the outcome but it could have.”
The Mets are playing good baseball, winners of five-of-their-last-eight games, and the combination of the rotation and offense has been a big part of that, but Verlander believes he can do better.
Since his return from the IL, the former AL MVP has been a big up-and-down but he says he’s starting to feel a lot better on the mound especially with his slider. Verlander struck out all eight batters using that pitch, and three were caught looking. It had a lot of movement and kept the Blue Jays hitters off balance.
“I’ve been working extremely hard on my delivery, throwing a lot it hasn’t been quite right yet. Had some decent results game-wise and some poor results,” Verlander said of his slider. ” It’s not quite there yet. I’m hoping some of the work in between has made it a bit more deceptive. It’s not perfect but it’s trending in the right direction. It’s tough when you miss the first month of the season… I’m working hard. Some positives from today for sure.”
Verlander won’t pitch again until next Thursday thanks to a day off on Monday and he’ll look to string together back-to-back quality starts for the first time this season.