Mets hitters keep getting smoked by baseballs. So far during this young season, their batsmen have stepped up to the plate and been thumped by a pitch on 18 occasions. They're averaging nearly one hit batter per game, and a few of those beanings have been particularly gnarly. On Tuesday night, Cardinals pitchers managed to tag Mets hitters three times, and slugger Pete Alonso got the worst of what St. Louis had to offer.
You might have expected the postgame storyline to be about how cheesed off the Mets were at suffering through three more beanballs, but things went in a different direction thanks to some spicy comments from Mets starting pitcher Chris Bassitt. He moved the blame away from the Cardinals pitching staff and onto MLB's ceaseless futzing with the baseball.
"It's extremely annoying to see your teammates constantly get hit, and if you get hit by certain pitches it is what it is, but to get hit in the head the amount that we're getting hit is unbelievable," Bassitt said. "I had some close calls tonight, and I've been hit in the face, and I don't want to do that to anybody ever, but MLB has a very big problem with the baseballs. They're bad. Everyone in the league knows it. Every pitcher knows it. They're bad."
Bassitt went on to say that it's difficult to get a good grip on the baseballs because they all feel different from inning to inning, and concluded that "MLB doesn't give a damn about it."
Could it be? Instead of easily slipping into a standard pose of red-assness, Bassitt offered, perhaps unintentionally, the warm embrace of solidarity to his enemies across the diamond. Let us not deny ourselves prosperity through petty recriminations, Bassitt seemed to be saying. Let us instead join hands as brothers and attack the very structures that have been erected in order to cloud our consciousness and set us against each other! That's definitely what he was saying!
Unfortunately, that message does not seem to have resonated with Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas:
Poor, sweet Miles. Don't you see? The Man has conditioned you to prize personal responsibility above all else, and that is precisely how he keeps you under his boot. Don't give into it! Go give Max Scherzer a big hug and smooch during the next game, and then throw one of those crappy baseballs MLB keeps forcing you to play with into the sewer. You've got nothing to lose but your teammates' poor aim.
