Mets hope Bichette's four-hit game is sign of surge to come

SEATTLE -- It would be easy, following Bo Bichette's four-hit game on Wednesday, to declare him finally ready to catch fire. Bichette has the skillset and the track record, and he now has a platform game from which he can launch himself.

Of course, Bichette previously had those things lined up multiple times this season. On each occasion, his momentum quickly deflated.

So while it’s impossible to say if this will indeed be the springboard Bichette needs, it was, if nothing else, another potential rebirth. In a 7-1 win over the Mariners, Bichette contributed the 19th four-hit game of his career and his first with the Mets, highlighting a series finale that also included six quality innings from Freddy Peralta and the Mets’ first steal of home in three years.

“That’s all I want is to help the team win,” Bichette said. “It felt good.”

Bichette’s third hit was his most impactful, coming with the bases loaded in a tie game in the fourth. That 91 mph grounder off George Kirby drove home two runs for a Mets team that never looked back, even adding a little flair when Carson Benge swiped home on a double steal with Juan Soto.

Benge, who could not recall ever having stolen home in college or the Minors, became the first Met to do so since Francisco Lindor in 2023 and the first Mets rookie to pull it off since Eric Campbell in 2014.

“I was kind of just going no matter what,” Benge said.

Bichette also singled and scored in the first inning, singled in the third and singled once more in the sixth. He added a sacrifice fly in his final plate appearance to finish 4-for-4 with three RBIs.

“I got decent pitches to hit, and I hit them hard -- some of them,” Bichette said. “Some of them I didn’t. I just liked that I got hits.”

Coming into the day, Bichette was on an 0-for-16 skid that had dragged his OPS down to .570. Part of the problem is that every time he seems ready to break out, he falls into an even deeper slump than before. Following a rough opening weekend to his Mets career, for example, Bichette hit .364 over an eight-game stretch in early April, only to drop into a 4-for-28 funk after that. In mid-May, Bichette clubbed three home runs in two games, only to go 3-for-his-next-23. His most recent slump was part of a deeper, 1-for-21 stretch.

As manager Carlos Mendoza continues to note, that’s partially been due to bad luck. Entering the day, Bichette’s expected batting average was .276, or 50 points higher than his mark after Wednesday's game. His batting average on balls in play was a career-worst .239, or a whopping 103 points lower than last year with the Blue Jays.

“I feel like this guy has been very unlucky,” Mendoza said.

“But I’m not going to sit here and say that I’ve been at my best,” Bichette added. “There’s been probably a lot of at-bats that could be better. So I’m just trying to focus on being more consistent.”

To achieve that, Bichette said, “there’s no secret recipe.” He simply must continue hitting the ball to all fields with authority, and hope that consistent success follows.

The second part of that equation -- consistent success -- has been a season-long issue for Bichette, who’s been booed at Citi Field multiple times in the first year of a three-year, $126 million contract. This road trip will at least provide him with three more chances to get hot in San Diego before returning home, where he’ll look to make the final four months of the season far more productive than the first two.

“He needs to find grass,” Mendoza said. “They’re human, man. And when you look up and the numbers are not what they’re supposed to be at, everybody keeps telling you ‘good swing’ after a bullet. It gets tired, at times. They want to see results.”

At his best, Bichette is regularly capable of this sort of thing. Five times last season in Toronto, Bichette delivered a four-hit game. For comparison’s sake, the entire Mets roster combined for six such games.

For Bichette, maintaining production is about trusting the abilities and work ethic that made him a career .294 hitter heading into this season. Keeping things simple comes naturally to him. Asked what he liked about Wednesday’s game, for example, Bichette shrugged.

“I got hits,” he said. “That’s what I liked.”