On the heels of one of the worst starts of Chris Bassitt's career, Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider says the team is going to have patience with the right-hander as he becomes acquainted with PitchCom.
Bassitt, who made his first appearance for the Blue Jays after signing with the club in the off-season, surrendered four home runs in a 9-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. The nine runs allowed by the 34-year-old represented the most he'd ever given up in a major-league outing.
"I think the PitchCom's not an issue," Schneider said on Monday during Blair and Barker on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. "I think it's just a new rhythm for him — first year that anyone's ever pushed a button to call their own pitches as opposed to shaking their head [to indicate] yes or no. So, I think it just came down to execution."
Bassitt, who throws eight different pitches, opted to call his own game through PitchCom. Working with catcher Danny Jansen, Bassitt repeatedly allowed hard contact throughout his 3.1 innings and said afterward that he was “at a loss for words a little bit” because he’d “never had a game” in which such a wide variety of pitches yielded those results.
"He's gonna make the proper adjustments which is what he's always done," Schneider told Jeff Blair and Kevin Barker on Monday.
He acknowledged that the club may have a catcher call Bassitt's games down the road, but isn't looking to change anything at the moment.
"We may get to that point,” said Schneider. But I think right now, we've obviously gotten here being comfortable with him calling it. If we need to adjust it at any point, we will, but I don't think it's going to be a knee-jerk reaction and say, 'Hey, we're taking this away from you.'
"We're all kind of still going through how the how the PitchCom works for the pitcher and the catcher," the manager added. "And I think once everyone gets used to the pitch clock as well, it may be a non-issue. So, we'll see. We'll continue to talk about it like we have all spring training."
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