TORONTO -- Bo Bichette watched it fly, shedding the weight of 256 at-bats before his trot around the bases.
That’s how long Bichette had to wait between his last big league home run and the leadoff blast he launched in the Blue Jays’ 5-3 loss to the Guardians on Saturday afternoon. Bichette is usually as stoic as they come, though you’ll forgive him for breaking character as he rounded second base at Rogers Centre, putting his hands together and looking up at the skies as if to say, “finally.”
He went right back to his strong, quiet self afterward.
“It felt good,” Bichette said, and left it at that, when asked about getting the first one out of the way.
This was always a matter of time, but after nearly a full calendar year, Bichette decided he’d waited long enough. He unloaded on a first-pitch fastball in on the hands from Guardians starter Gavin Williams and sent it a Statcast-projected 387 feet to left field to open the scoring.
It looked like the opening scene of a fourth-straight win for Toronto until a rare bad outing by Yimi García allowed the Guardians to mount a comeback in the ninth. Bichette’s homer is about more than this game, though.
A classic Bo power swing felt like the final piece of an offensive surge that began on Wednesday, when the Blue Jays homered three times to come back from 6-0 and beat the Red Sox in extra innings. Anthony Santander and Alejandro Kirk were the heroes in that one. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came through the next day. One by one, Toronto’s big bats shook off varying degrees of slow starts to help their team get back on track.
“I like our at-bats recently,” said Bichette. “ … We're capable of so much more. So, I mean, we definitely got to be better. There's a fine line of being patient, waiting for it, and, you know, doing something about it. So it's not always that easy, but we have the ability to be a really good offense. And I think we're showing that a little bit.”
Bichette stayed fairly consistent, but the power was lagging. That explained his .285 average and .675 OPS entering this game. There’s nothing wrong with hitting singles, but Bichette is here for more. That’s what made the drought so harrowing.
Gone were the calf and hand injuries that limited Bichette to 81 games last season, and with a clean bill of health came a clean slate. Bichette spoke of getting back to his identity, slowing the game down, getting comfortable again. Still, the wait dragged on, testing the limits of a fresh mentality.
Bichette never looked outright impatient, but some of his at-bats showed urgency, especially during the Blue Jays’ 1-5 stretch between Houston and New York. Tasked with setting the tone in the leadoff role, Bichette ran into some very quick outs, his aggressiveness flipping from asset to soft spot.
He needed a reset. So it wasn’t totally surprising to find his dad, Dante Bichette, hanging behind the cage earlier this week while Bo took batting practice on the field. As hitting coach David Popkins said on a Sportsnet broadcast during Spring Training, “the two best hitting coaches for Bo are probably Dante and Bo. I just fill in the gaps.” It works when you’re dealing with an “extremely intelligent” player.
“In the past when I've not felt my best, it's been really bad, but I think I've been able to do some good things throughout the year so far,” said Bichette. “Yeah, I just hope I can get in a groove soon. It’s kind of how the season goes.”
The calculated aggression he showed with that first-pitch swing off of Williams is a good illustration of a player doing good things to get in a groove. Pitching inside is anything but a new game plan against Bichette. He picked up on a good pitch to hit and attacked it. That’s when Bo is at his best, regardless of where he’s hitting. It’s just about adjusting to the situation -- another point of pride for the 27-year-old.
“We’re seeing a guy who’s able to pick you apart. I’m a big UFC fan and the guy that I always liked to watch fight is Jon Jones,” Popkins said on the broadcast. “He really paralyzes guys, because you never know how he’s going to attack you.”
There’s still so much work to be done -- individually and collectively -- but Bichette is the “sparkplug,” as Kevin Gausman described him. The groove will come. The spark is there.