TORONTO -- There’s still something missing here. Even with the Blue Jays clinching their first AL East title since 2015, it doesn’t feel complete without Bo Bichette.
Toronto didn’t exactly spring through the finish line. It did enough, fully deserving of the spotlight that’s on the club now as the top seed in the American League, but no Blue Jays team is whole without Bichette’s name in the lineup. He’s been part of this organization for a decade now. This is the moment he’s been chasing all along.
Toronto’s bye to the ALDS could hold incredible value. Bichette is still on the IL, still working his way back from a left knee sprain that has challenged him and this organization. Even in the haze of Sunday’s celebrations, with neon lights and smoke still spilling out of the Blue Jays’ makeshift nightclub, Bichette was who he’s always been, straightforward and focused.
“It helps. I will do everything I can in the next four or five days to see what we can do,” Bichette said.
If the Blue Jays had been bumped to the Wild Card Series, it’s clear Bichette wouldn’t have played. The ALDS begins Saturday, though, at home against either the Red Sox or Yankees. Finally, there’s a solid date to set a countdown clock to.
“I’m feeling better. Every day, I’m feeling better,” Bichette said. “I don’t know. I don’t have a date, but I will be doing everything that I possibly can to get back.”
For now, this is all we have to work with. Each day, when media members pack into manager John Schneider’s office like a clown car, he opens with an update on the Blue Jays’ injured players. Lately, Schneider’s updates on Bichette have sounded a lot like that, offering some quiet optimism but no real step forward.
Everyone is still waiting for the moment Schneider can step in front of a microphone and say that Bichette has started running. That’s the golden ticket here. Until Bichette is running, no amount of swinging or throwing will amount to much. The moment Bichette can prove he’s able to run, he’ll be kicking down the door to Schneider’s office, trying to write his own name on the lineup card.
Bichette was drafted in 2016. He still talks about watching those teams as a teenager, reaching back to those memories of the cameras shaking at Rogers Centre when José Bautista or Josh Donaldson did something spectacular. He’s been one of the faces of this new era of Blue Jays baseball, right alongside his longtime friend and co-star, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Bichette’s also in the final year of his deal, mere weeks from being one of the top names in free agency.
No one wants this more than Bichette. He and Guerrero have led this organization to the postseason three times, but they haven’t won a game yet. Schneider has watched Bichette through this journey, too, right back to managing him and Vladdy in the Minor Leagues.
“This [bye] is exactly what we needed,” Schneider said, “so I hope he continues to progress and I hope that he gets a chance to contribute to this. His career has been as a Toronto Blue Jay. He’s been instrumental to what we’ve been doing here the last six years, so I hope he can progress well enough to be right in the middle of what we’re doing.”
Bichette is handling this as well as he can, but as always, he’s difficult to read. Perhaps he likes it that way, but it’s not his job to let us into his mind. Bichette always has been and always will be a fierce competitor, so driven and obsessive in everything he does. If you had a dollar for every ground ball Bichette takes during a season, you’d be able to retire by July. Sitting on the sidelines doesn’t come naturally to him.
“This is tough. I’ve never been in this position,” Bichette said. “It’s definitely not easy, but at the same time, this group is incredibly easy to pull for and you feel like you’re a part of it even when you’re not playing. It’s been difficult, but I feel just as excited as if I was playing.”
This is the biggest variable hanging over the Blue Jays. It sounds like Chris Bassitt, who is battling a cranky lower back, will be ready for the ALDS -- another starting option to consider alongside Max Scherzer -- but Bichette’s timeline is still a cloudy "TBD".
We won’t see the full version of the Blue Jays until Bichette steps to the plate, though. Whether this season is the end of the road or not for Bichette in Toronto, he can’t be done just yet.