NEW YORK -- Over seven seasons in Toronto, Bo Bichette said, he never heard more than scattered boos from random fans. That makes sense. Bichette hit .311 as a rookie and rarely faltered much after that, making multiple All-Star teams as a Blue Jay and, in his final year there, leading his team to within one win of a World Series title.
Here in Queens? It took Bichette all of two games to hear boos and all of three games for them to become impossible to ignore. Bichette gets that. Asked after Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Pirates if he anticipated hearing this much jeering this early into his Mets tenure, Bichette quipped: “If anything, I thought it took too long.”
“But I get it,” he added. “I thought my at-bats were terrible, too.”
To some extent, Bichette’s self-analysis is overly critical. In his first plate appearance as a Met on Opening Day, Bichette lofted a sacrifice fly. He contributed later that game with multiple lengthy at-bats, including a 13-pitch exchange during a decisive fifth-inning rally. But Bichette also struck out thrice and has continued to fan multiple times per game, resulting in a 53.3 percent K rate overall. While it’s an extremely small sample of just 15 plate appearances, Bichette is striking out more than 3.5 times as often as he did last season.
In a thoughtful postgame interview, Bichette chalked up his performance to the pressure he’s felt since inking a three-year, $126 million contract with the Mets. From the day Bichette signed, he said, he wanted to introduce himself to the fan base with a “moment.” That thinking has led him to nothing more than a 1-for-14 stretch to start the season.
“I didn’t anticipate it, but I definitely felt that wanting to have a moment not only for my teammates, but for the fans,” Bichette said. “That’s just something I have to manage. … I guess I didn’t anticipate it affecting the way I play.”
Anyone who expected Bichette to struggle early in his first season likely figured it would happen on defense, given his transition from shortstop to third base. And while Bichette has endured some growing pains around the bag, those haven’t affected the Mets in nearly the same way as his miniature slump. When the team touches down in St. Louis for a three-game series beginning Monday, Bichette will head into the batting cage -- his laboratory -- to try to fix it.
“We can talk about it being early, but I need to figure some things out,” Bichette said. “I’ve done it before. Just different circumstances.”
If he needs advice, Bichette needs only look to his left. Shortstop Francisco Lindor notably struggled during his first season in Flushing after signing a nine-figure contract in 2021, then rebounded to deliver Top 10 MVP performances every season since.
“He’s one of the best hitters in the game,” Lindor said of Bichette. “He’s going to have a lot of big moments for us. This is only normal, and we’re all on board with him. We know what kind of hitter he is. He’s going to execute. He’s going to come through more than he fails, so I can’t wait for him to get going.”