Bichette eyes breakout with clutch hit: 'A big moment for me'

PITTSBURGH -- It took 129 games, 564 plate appearances and 10 pitches, but Bo Bichette might finally have found his moment.

Locked in a bases-loaded battle in the seventh inning Saturday night at PNC Park, his front toe tied to the dirt as he fought for contact with two strikes, Bichette ripped a double to left field. This broke a slow, frustrating deadlock, but it was nothing compared to what Bichette has been through this season.

Toronto’s 4-1 win over the Pirates is a result of what teammates, coaches and anyone within 100 miles of this team have been saying for weeks now. No player has the ability to elevate this lineup like Bichette, and if he finally breaks out, we could finally see a fully realized version of the 2022 Blue Jays.

“When we’re at our best, we’re ultra-aggressive and we take it to the other team,” Bichette said. “There’s a fine line, obviously, between being too aggressive and looking wild. When we’re going at our best, we take it to the other team and that pitcher can never breathe.”

As the three runs crossed home, the Blue Jays’ dugout erupted with a mix of joy and relief on a night when the Rays, Orioles and Mariners all won, keeping a deadlocked AL Wild Card Race just as tight. Bichette’s heartbeat never tends to flutter above resting, though, even when he’s the man standing on second with his dugout screaming.

“I think it was just a big moment for me to get that hit,” Bichette said. “Well, I figured it was a big moment, but I didn’t really know how pumped up they were. I’m just excited to get the job done.

Back in Spring Training, Bichette looked poised for a jump to superstardom. He was an All-Star shortstop at 23, flirting with a 30-30 season while hitting .298 with an .827 OPS in 2021. Bump those numbers up another level and combine them with Bichette -- whose famous name, trademark hair and playing style make him a marketing dream -- and you’d have a potential face of a franchise.

That’s not how this summer has gone.

After looking fantastic down in Dunedin, Fla., through February and March, Bichette has spent the season running uphill in the mud. He’s had his moments, but they’ve never strung together and never created traction. His average and OPS have hovered near .260 and .730 with remarkable consistency this season, but that’s just not who Bichette is.

There’s a mental side to this, too. There always is. If you were casting the young Blue Jays’ core for a TV sitcom, Bichette is The Serious One. Interim manager John Schneider knows this as well as anyone, being his manager back in Double-A New Hampshire in ‘18, so he’s seen how Bichette’s brain works. We’ve heard a dozen times now that “nobody is harder on Bo than himself,” which can only be healthy up to a certain point, but Schneider has been confident that Bichette knows where that line is.

“He’s pretty self-motivated. You don’t really have to nudge him too much,” Schneider said. “I know him pretty well to where, if things are going great, he’s not going to get too high. If things are going bad, he’s not going to get too low. You trust that he’s here to be great.”

It’s always been that way, too. In a down year, this is what has allowed Bichette to keep his head just above water, with “water” being that .260 average and .730 OPS. It hasn’t always been pretty, including on the defensive side, but no member of this organization could ever question the work Bichette is putting in.

“He wants to beat you at ping-pong, tic-tac-toe and checkers,” Schneider said. “He does not want to give in. He does not want to lose. He does not want to have you say that someone’s better than him at anything. You can’t teach that.”

This deep into the season, even a hot streak won’t do much to change Bichette’s year-long numbers, but those won’t matter if he can pull it off. In a lineup stacked with George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a long list of star-caliber bats behind them, Bichette is that “something extra” that could finally lend some consistency to a lineup that’s been in search of it for five months now.

If that happens, the Blue Jays will quickly go from a participant in the postseason race to a legitimate threat.