Does history matter in baseball? Yes and no. There are tendencies, sure, but pitcher-hitter matchups are stories from different teams, different seasons—heck, even different people, given that stuff and swings change from one year to another. The Baltimore Orioles had saddled Toronto’s Chris Bassitt with an 8.55 ERA in the past. Turns out, sometimes old stats are worth no more than a hill of beans.
On Sunday, the Blue Jays and the Orioles each sent a command pitcher to the mound, Toronto the righty Bassitt and Baltimore its new Japanese import Tomoyuki Sugano. In the end, it was Bassitt who got the better of the matchup, giving his team six strong innings on 106 pitches, surrendering just one run. Despite allowing traffic in every inning, Bassitt, to quote MASN’s Kevin Brown, was “cutting and sinking and splitting his way out of one jam after another.” The Orioles put some good swings on him, but could not get into a rhythm.
Would history mean something for Tomoyuki Sugano? This is a guy who’s done everything you could want in Japanese pro ball. In twelve seasons, he has a 136-74 record, a career 2.43 ERA and 1,596 strikeouts in 1,873 innings. He’s won their equivalent of the Cy Young twice. Would all that translate on an MLB mound?
We don’t know yet, but I can sum up the initial vibes like this. A pitcher who in twelve seasons in Japan walked just 1.7 batters per game walked his first MLB hitter on four pitches, then surrendered a 374-foot flyout to Vlad Guerrero Jr. and a ball Anthony Santander hit on the screws to right, where Tyler O’Neill made a great ranging catch. The camera cut to Sugano, who was sweating and grimacing visibly. Nerves are tough, huh. Even for a seasoned pro.
It was a very tightrope-y first inning, and debut, overall. It could have gone worse . . . but also better. After that leadoff walk and the noisy lineout, Sugano gave up consecutive hits to Andrés Giménez and George Springer, who singled home two runs for Toronto.
As bad as he looked at first, however, Sugano kept the lid on the Toronto offense for the most part. He looked MUCH better in the second: his breaking stuff wasn’t hanging out there with a “HIT ME” sign, and his command came back. His fastball is about 93 mph, but it has left-to-right movement, and he can really dot it in, glove-side. For the most part, Toronto managed only weak contact off him after that, although the defense had to save his bacon in the third (Cedric Mullins, reeling one in in center, and Ryan Mountcastle, with a leaping backhanded grab at first).
But just as Tommy Sugar looked like he was starting to get into a rhythm, suddenly he called for the trainer and was out—a hand cramp, it turns out. Sugano was still hanging around the dugout after leaving the mound, with no trainers attending to him, so it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too bad. It could be dehydration-related. He really was sweating profusely out there.
Ultimately, Toronto scored just two runs in the first six innings, but the O’s offense, alas, was even quieter. As Kevin Brown said, swarms of cutters, splitters, changeups and curveballs from Bassitt kept the Orioles from stringing together consecutive hits. They scored once in the first, then not again, despite having a runner or more on in every inning.
The single run came with two outs in the first inning, when a rally was strung together by the two most Irish-sounding Orioles. Ryan O’Hearn, who’d scorched the ball in vain all weekend, finally got a single for his troubles (at 102 mph) and Tyler O’Neill, who has not hit Bassitt well in the past, singled. O’Hearn gutsily—barely—took third, and that proved key when Bassitt uncorked a wild pitch to bring him home.
But that was it, with nine runners stranded on the day. The Birds wasted a Jackson Holliday bloop Bermuda single/stolen base in the second; a Colton Cowser single and a 102-mph O’Hearn double in the third; and in the fourth back-to-back singles by Ryan Mountcastle—at 116.7 mph, it was the the fastest-hit ball of his career, and fastest-hit ball by an Oriole since 2017 (!!)—and Ramón Urías. More stranded runners in the fifth, when Adley singled and O’Hearn walked, but O’Neill rashly hit into a grounder and Cedric Mullins struck out after fighting off eight pitches. And in the sixth, Urías walked and then stayed put.
It’s a 162-game season, and I get that the skipper has to rest his guys, but to Monday-morning quarterback for just a second, there were a few lineup decisions that you could raise an eyebrow at. Jordan Westburg, author of three home runs this weekend, never got into the game. Power-hitting lefty Heston Kjerstad also sat against a right-handed starter (for defensive reasons, apparently, even though O’Neill has never hit Bassitt well). Jorge Mateo was an automatic out, basically.
In silver linings news, recent callup Matt Bowman looked good through two innings, despite nearly beaning Anthony Santander. That was dicey. But his stuff looks elusive, so I’m looking forward to more from Bowman. Cionel Pérez allowed a bizarre home run, his first since June 2023 (!!), to 33-year-old Tyler Heineman who’s been a backup catcher in the league since 2019 and in 113 games had exactly… one home run to his name. Now it’s two. Ugh. But the sometimes-hittable power reliever Bryan Baker also looked good. And you can’t really complain about five innings of one-run ball from the ‘pen against a tough lineup like Toronto’s.
The O’s will have to settle for the split, and figure out a better approach to hitting offspeed pitches as they head back to Baltimore for tomorrow’s home opener against the Red Sox.
