McNeil struck out in only 10.4 percent of his plate appearances this year, the third lowest rate among qualified hitters and well below the 22.4 percent league average. That's an eternity given the league strikeout rate these days. Soto then drove in two insurance runs with a single in the eighth.Īnd second, McNeil struck out! He had gone 60 plate appearances - since Sept. Manny Machado, the next batter, singled in the run. It is Soto's first sac bunt since his rookie year in 2018, and only the second of his MLB career. First, Solo laid down a sacrifice bunt! He was trying to bunt for a hit with the third baseman back and shaded toward shortstop, but it goes into the record books as a sac bunt. You never know what you're going to see when you show up to the ballpark each day and, in Game 3, Juan Soto and Jeff McNeil each did something unusual. Soto and McNeil each did something unusual Grisham reached base four times in Game 3 and went 4 for 8 with two homers, two walks, and zero strikeouts in the Wild Card Series. Every team is 0-0 and every hitter has a fresh slash line.
184/.284/.341 this year, ranking 126th in OPS among the 130 hitters with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Grisham's big weekend comes after a dreadful regular season. And because that wasn't enough, he saved a run with a tremendous running catch in center in the fifth inning. He took Max Scherzer deep in Game 1, Jacob deGrom deep in Game 2, then he drove in a run with a two-out single against Bassitt in Game 3. There is no such thing as the Wild Card Series MVP, but if there were, Trent Grisham would have won it this weekend. I don't want to say all the stepping out tripped up Bassitt and explains his subpar outing, but San Diego's hitters did ask for time at an inordinate rate. Padres skipper Bob Melvin managed Bassitt with the Athletics from 2015-21, so he knows him well, and that means knowing what gets under his skin. My guess - and I emphasize this is just a guess - is all the stepping out was intentional.
San Diego stepped out enough that Mets manager Buck Showalter was asked about it during an in-game ESPN interview (he said he didn't mind). He's never been an especially quick worker, though he doesn't work so slow that hitters often become impatient in the box. A disappointing end to what was a very good regular season for the free agent-to-be-righty.Īlso, either by design or by coincidence, Padres hitters stepped out of the box a lot - A LOT - against Bassitt. Bassitt fooled no one in Game 3 and he exited with the Mets down 3-0 after four innings. He threw 61 pitches and the Padres swung and missed twice. After that first inning Bassitt faced 15 batters and six reached base, and six of the 10 balls in play had a 95 mph exit velocity or better.
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