Chris Bassitt accomplishes feat not done by any Blue Jays pitcher in eight years

On Friday night, the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the red-hot visiting Atlanta Braves 3-0, backed by an amazing performance by starting pitcher Chris Bassitt. Bassitt tossed a complete game shutout with just 103 pitches, being in control all night giving up only two hits, while walking only two and striking out a season-high eight batters. But what he didn’t know was he became the first Blue Jay in eight years to throw a nine-inning, complete game shutout since Mark Buehrle did it in June of 2015 against the Washington Nationals.

Here was the raw scorecard from the game to commemorate every moment in Bassitt’s feat:

There haven’t been many complete games tossed by Jays’ hurlers in recent years as a lot had to do with game and pitch management by the Jays’ managers to help preserve the arms over the lengthy 162-game schedule. Which makes this accomplishment by Bassitt that much more rare, being finally entrusted by the manager and the team to finish off what he had started.

More impressive was the fact that Bassitt did it against arguably the best team currently in the NL, the Braves, and they were coming into town having won 11 of their past 15 games, as well as sporting a league-leading 15-4 record on the road. Not only that, but the Braves had their ace starter Spencer Strider on the mound. Strider had been undefeated so far this season, going 4-0 with a 2.70 ERA and 0.925 WHIP to go along with 67 strikeouts in just 40 innings pitched prior to Friday’s game. In addition, the Braves had not lost a single game all season in which he had started.

Bassitt’s win was aided by a key single in the 5th inning by the struggling George Springer to put the Jays on the board. Springer was just inserted back into the starting lineup after being out for the past two games due to a viral illness. Daulton Varsho also added an insurance home run late in the 8th inning. Bassitt is now 5-2 for the season, with a 3.49 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP. He also has 41 strikeouts in 49 innings pitched and is starting to look more and more like a front-end starter for the Jays rotation with every start.

Sometimes being able to grind out a tough win against one of the best in baseball with an all-round solid team effort is what makes the team have the right mentality set in place for the rest of the season. So look for this victory to be one of the key milestones for the success of the 2023 Jays’ season.