The baseball is arguably the most important piece of equipment in the sport. Hitting the baseball is the object of the game and depending on the condition of the ball and the climate, the ball can react in a myriad of ways.
The New York Mets have had a lot of players getting hit by pitches. Just three weeks into the season, the Mets have been hit 18 times by pitches, an average of nearly one per game. For reference, the Orioles, Rockies, and Padres are tied for second with 11.
Pete Alonso and Starling Marte have been hit four times already while James McCann and Dominic Smith have been hit three times. And after Mets’ players were hit three times by Cardinals pitchers Tuesday night, Chris Bassitt has had enough.
After pitching six shutout innings in the win, the Mets’ pitcher went off on Major League Baseball on the conditions of the baseballs and how that’s causing so many hit-by-pitches. He noted the inconsistency of the balls throughout the game that is causing problems, and said MLB doesn’t care about fixing the issue.
“It’s extremely annoying to see your teammates constantly get hit and if we 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, it’s unbelievable. I had some close calls tonight which, I’ve been hit in the face I don’t ever want to do that to anybody ever, but the MLB has a very big problem with the baseballs. They’re bad. Everyone knows it. Every pitcher in the league knows it. They’re bad. They don’t care. The MLB doesn’t give a d*** about it.”
“They don’t care. We’ve told them our problems with them. They don’t care.”
When asked what’s been different about the balls, Bassitt elaborated:
“They’re all different. The first inning they’re decent. The third inning they’re bad. The fourth inning they’re okay. The fifth inning they’re bad. Then we have different climates, everything’s different. There’s no common ground with the balls. There’s nothing, nothing the same, out in the outing they’re bad.”
Bassitt is probably getting a fine, but this is still certainly a cause for concern. Bassitt notes that not taking away offense is why the league doesn’t want to do anything but not being able to have enough control of the ball that a pitcher is drilling people in the head, especially given what we know about concussions and CTE, sounds like a worse problem than have a potential drop in home runs. It’s not going to prevent every hit-by-pitch, but at least with a little more control, the batters might just get hit with a breaking ball to the body instead of a fastball to the head.
