The Mets offense, as a whole, is struggling, but Bo Bichette is starting to look more like himself, and Thursday proved that.
Bichette’s box score shows he went 1-for-4, but he could have easily had three hits and driven in a lot more runs. It started in the first, when he lined a double to left field to score the game’s first run. He then took Robbie Ray very deep in the third inning. Bichette launched an 86 mph slider to straightaway center. The ball exited the bat at 104 mph and went 390 feet. Unfortunately for Bichette and the Mets, it needed to go 391 feet as Harrison Bader leapt and caught it at the top of the wall.
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“I don’t know, I thought I hit it OK,” Bichette said after the game of the near-homerun. “I mean, if I thought I got it, I would’ve came out of the box a little different.”
After a strikeout in the fifth, Bichette’s night ended similarly to the robbed home run. He hit a liner that first baseman Casey Schmitt jumped and snagged on a line, before stepping on first base to complete the double play that ended the eighth.
“Bo had some really good at-bats today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That first inning, that double. The one he drove to centerfield. I thought the at-bats from him today looked like Bo Bichette.”
The high-profile free agent signing hasn’t lived up to his billing in the early going. Entering Thursday’s game, Bichette was just 3-for-27 with no extra-base hits. Bichette even admitted that he didn’t feel like himself in the first series against the Pirates, but it seems the infielder has found his stroke, especially over the last couple of games.
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Although the hits haven’t been there, the at-bats look better. He struck out eight times in the first three games, he’s struck out just once since and that includes Thursday.
“Other than the first three games at home, he’s settling in nicely,” Mendoza said. “Not trying to do too much. When he does that, he’s a pretty good player.”
But Bichette’s re-emergence has not translated to much offense for the team overall. After going 0-for-11 with RISP in Wednesday’s series finale against the Cardinals, they were 0-for-3 on Thursday.
“I mean, we’ve faced some pretty good pitchers recently. Or pitchers that have pitched well, that’s part of it,” Bichette said of the team’s struggles. “I think for the most part, guys are having good at-bats. Maybe the contact is just not where we need it… This is baseball, so things go up and down, not that you’re OK with it. You need to figure out a way to be better, but this is baseball. We’ll show up tomorrow and do it again.”
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Bichette was asked about his two hard outs — the near-homerun and the linedrive double play had xBAs of .680 and .520, respectively — and whether the team is just a bit unlucky to start the season.
“Maybe, but that’s not something to fall on. Should always be looking to do better, be better,” Bichette said. “So that’s what we’ll do. Good thing about baseball, we get to do it tomorrow.
“I think people are looking at everything, every day throughout the whole season. Some years you get off to good starts, some years you don’t. Just part of it.”
