{"id":240239,"date":"2025-10-26T00:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T00:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/240239\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T00:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T00:05:12","slug":"blue-jays-notes-bichette-bassitt-mattingly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/240239\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Notes: Bichette, Bassitt, Mattingly"},"content":{"rendered":"

After winning Game 1 of the World Series in dominant fashion yesterday, the Blue Jays are looking to take a 2-0 lead in the series before they head to L.A. for Game 3 on Monday. They\u2019ll be doing so without star infielder Bo Bichette<\/a> in the lineup, however. That might sound concerning to Jays fans, given that he\u2019s just be activated from a long layoff that had stretched from the regular season all throughout the playoffs to this point, but Mitch Bannon of The Athletic<\/a> relays that (according to Jays manager John Schneider) that extended layoff is exactly the reason for today\u2019s day off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll be ready to play today, for sure,\u201d\u00a0Schneider said, as relayed by Bannon. \u201cBut really, after the layoff, didn\u2019t want to kill him, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Bichette won\u2019t be starting at second base like he did yesterday (or his native position of shortstop, for that matter), Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet<\/a> relays that the infielder is actually feeling better than expected after his first game action since early September and that Bichette told Schneider he\u2019d be available off the bench today. That\u2019s excellent news for the Blue Jays, as it means they\u2019ll have one of their best hitters available if high leverage moment comes up at some point in today\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Bichette recorded a single and a walk in three plate appearances yesterday and is coming off a regular season where he slashed .311\/.357\/.483 in 139 games. It goes without saying that having him in the lineup would be preferable to leaving him on the bench, but in conjunction with tomorrow\u2019s travel day today\u2019s decision could allow the Jays to push Bichette more throughout the seven-game series. In the meantime, Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> is batting eighth and in the lineup at second base in Bichette\u2019s place.<\/p>\n

Turning to another injured player, Nicholson-Smith relays<\/a> that veteran right-hander Chris Bassitt<\/a> is dealing with a cut\/blister on his pitching hand. Bassitt is available to pitch in any game, including Game 2 this evening, after moving to the bullpen for the postseason. That Bassitt won\u2019t be sat down while his blister heals is good news for the Jays considering his excellent work across three scoreless relief appearances this October, but it\u2019s still a concerning update given that even minor injuries to a pitcher\u2019s throwing hand can impact grip and command. It wouldn\u2019t be a shock if the Blue Jays tried to avoid using Bassitt in high leverage moments until they have confidence about how the blister is impacting his mechanics.<\/p>\n

In off the field news, meanwhile, Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a> writes that Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly could be considering calling it a career after making it to the World Series for the first time across his decades-long career in baseball. Heyman notes that friends of Mattingly \u201cbelieve retirement is a possibility\u201d\u00a0after this season, while Mattingly himself didn\u2019t tip his hand on the matter and simply told Heyman \u201cYou never know, you never know\u201d\u00a0when asked about his future. If Mattingly were to call it a career, he\u2019d do so as one of the most accomplished baseball icons of recent vintage. He earned an MVP award during a 14-year MLB career as a player and spent an additional 12 years managing the Dodgers and Marlins, the latter of whom he earned Manager of the Year honors for managing to the playoffs through a COVID-19 outbreak during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning Game 1 of the World Series in dominant fashion yesterday, the Blue Jays are looking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[7203,49,48,7204,19303,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-240239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-bo-bichette","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-chris-bassitt","12":"tag-don-mattingly","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}