Spencer Strider is back. Chris Bassitt, with some umpiring help, was better.
The Atlanta Braves have been offensively resurgent, whether you believe it or not. But, that all came crashing down on today, the day of my daughter’s wedding the day of my cat’s quinceañera the day of Spencer Strider’s return to the mound, as they basically got mauled by Chris Bassitt and Blue Jays pitching en route to a 3-1 loss. As if often the case, recapping this game in terms of sequence kind of misses the point, so I won’t. Instead…
Spencer Strider. The man affectionately known as Quadzilla returned, but he wasn’t exactly up to full speed. Though he looked awesome in the first inning, Strider seemed to struggle with the up-and-down nature of returning to the mound. I have no idea if that’s normal or expected, or just some kind of weird quirk related to getting back to a game that mattered for the first time in over a year, but it was plainly noticeable.
There was a hard-hit single to start the second, and then a hit-by-pitch, until Strider settled down. In his second return to the mound against the top of the order, he missed with a couple of fastballs quite badly, resulting in a hard-hit double and then a hard-hit grounder up the middle that gave the Jays a 1-0 lead. The inning after that also started with a 50-50 liner that was fortunately caught. Aside from that, though, Strider mostly just rocked on — once he got a few pitches into each inning he was more or less what you’d expect from an elite arm in his first game back after a long layoff.
But, in spite of all that, the outing turned sinister late… more on that below.
Chris Bassitt, the umpires, and the bats (such as they were). Bassitt has been awesome to start this season, and while his career stats against the Braves are fairly meh, he’s already logged a complete game shutout against them (in 2023, no less) and can be a tough customer for a team whose general offensive approach is “I can hit your good stuff if I guess right” given that he throws a bunch of pitches and isn’t really about getting by the opponent with physical gifts. What made things decidedly harder was the pretty insane lack of balance in terms of umpiring. Sure, maybe Alejando Kirk just completely out-framed Sean Murphy, but this is pretty egregious. By my count…
- Gift strikes (called, outside the biggest definition of the zone): Braves = 2; Jays = 5
- Missed strikes (balls, inside the zone with no guesswork): Braves = 0, Jays = 1
So, we’re net +4 calls for the Jays just on the obvious stuff.
But then, when we get into borderline pitches:
- Called strikes: Braves = 6; Jays = 17
- Called balls: Braves = 3; Jays = 1
If you assume that all borderline pitches are created equal, then basically the Braves got +1.5 calls, and the Jays got… +8. With the above, we’re talking the Braves getting +3.5 calls and the Jays getting +12. Was Bassitt good? Yep. Did the umpiring (or framing, I guess) make this a much more one-sided affair? I think so.
Amusingly, karma decided to reward the Braves and Drake Baldwin in particular by letting one of his routine lofted fly balls in the ninth carry out for his first big league homer. It wasn’t well hit and I’m pretty sure it lowered the Braves’ xwOBA on the day when hit (it certainly lowered their xBA), but hey, a homer’s a homer, even on a day like today.
Anyway, it’s not like the Braves didn’t threaten against Bassitt or anything. They drew walks in the second and third, had a leadoff single in the fourth, and got a couple of soft singles with one out in the fifth, followed by a wild pitch. But, Michael Harris II went fishing against Bassitt for a strikeout, and then Austin Riley got screwed on a clear blown 2-0 pitch call (unequivocal, that one) and struck out on a cutter at the top of zone. Basically, the Braves only had two 1-2-3 frames in the game offensively, but were worked over by Bassitt and the umpiring/framing early, and seemed mostly bamboozled or discombobulated or insert your favorite synonym for “confused” here in the latter half of the game, as the questionable calls started to pile up.
Decisions, decisions. The Braves sent Spencer Strider out for the sixth, despite him nearing 100 pitches, having the meat of the order up for a third time, and his struggles with the early parts of each inning. He jumped ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with two sliders on the outer portion of the zone for strikes, then struggled to put him away, and then hung a slider that Guerrero crushed for his first homer of the year. Strider then stayed in to issue a walk before being lifted for Dylan Lee, who ended up striking out two to keep the deficit at two.
In the seventh, Pierce Johnson ended up being on the hook for Toronto’s third run, even though it came as a result of a walk that was preceded by a 2-2 pitch that was barely borderline and I’m guessing is called a strike quite often; a grounder double down the line that followed scored the runner, and once again led me to wonder why the Braves don’t have Riley guard the line against righties, though this was hit hard enough that perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered. But, what made things weirder was that the Braves then asked Daysbel Hernandez (a righty) to take over for Johnson (also a righty). For a team that is oh so worried about bullpen workload management, down 3-0 late… why?
Anyway, this was a pretty bad loss. The Braves are 5-13 (bad), continued to show no real sense of risk management or urgency in terms of pitching management vis-a-vis starter tenure (expected, but also bad), and now really badly need a huge run after the off-day to try and clamber back into respectability by the time the month is over. After basically outplaying the Jays but getting stuffed by sequenced homers yesterday, this was pretty brutal in a different way — getting outplayed and outwitting themselves to lose the series.
On the plus side, aside from Strider’s return and Baldwin’s homer, Eli White had a pretty nice game with a couple of hits and a walk, though he did strike out to give the team 19 punchouts and end the game.
Anyway, complain in the comments about the offense or whatever.