Bichette is turning his season into a strong one — and dragging the Blue Jays with him

ARLINGTON, Texas – All throughout Bo Bichette’s increasingly torrid stretch at the plate, the question everyone keeps asking hitting coach Guillermo Martinez is what exactly the Toronto Blue Jays’ star shortstop is doing differently.

Tweak his stance, maybe? Make a subtle adjustment to his swing? Shift his approach in the box, perhaps? Anything to explain the sudden surge in his production?

“For me, the biggest thing that I've seen is how much he competes in his own practice,” Martinez said before Bichette ripped three more doubles, knocked in a run, scored and walked in an 11-7 romp over the Texas Rangers on Saturday night.

“That's allowed him to free up his mind. If you can make practice a little more difficult, it translates into games.”

For Bichette, it very much has been a video-game-esque run at the plate. Over nine September games, he’s now batting .525/.558/1.175 with 18 RBIs and 13 runs scored and if you stretch it back to Aug. 21, that line is .423/.483/.808. with 10 doubles, a triple, six homers, 20 RBIs and 17 runs scored.

“It's crazy,” said interim manager John Schneider, and there’s not an ounce of hyperbole there. “We know he's good. And this is the best version of Bo we've ever seen.”

That hot streak coincides with Bichette going back to a more aggressive practice technique he employed at times last year, in which he’d take live batting practice at-bats in the cage, “priming his eyes and his body for what he's going to face in the game,” said Martinez.

“We'll give him different counts,” the coach continued. “He calls out what he's looking for and the hitting coaches, even Tito (Hector Lebron, the club's interpreter), will throw those soft dimple balls so he can see an arm and more velocity, more break.”

Hitters can be reluctant to use the high velocity hitting machines, especially before games, to avoid the risk of getting jammed or making contact off the end of the bat, so the Blue Jays use the dimple balls to mitigate the impact on a hitter’s hands.

Those practice at-bats allowed Bichette to work through some issues at the plate “without worrying about the result,” he said, “seeing what works and what doesn't” in a consequence-free environment.

In turn, that allowed him “to get my mind right,” he continued. “It's probably not quite game-like, but it's close. For me, it's just about checking boxes, realizing that, hey, I don't have to cheat to get to the heater today, or I don't have to be rushed with two strikes and just be confident in things having checked off boxes.”

Still, such intense practice can be taxing and, depending on how one feels, a hitter might not always want to take game-speed reps just before taking the field. Bichette’s routine can fluctuate, although “recently I've been pretty consistent with what I'm doing. But there are times for it to be very simple, you just hit off the tee and go play. And there are times where have more work. That kind of stuff gives me a little bit more confidence going into the game.”

Martinez remembers Bichette using it off and on last season, as well, helping him out of a .636 OPS August to a .976 OPS September/October.

“It's funny because every year is different and guys find different routines throughout the course of the season and make adjustments throughout,” Martinez explained. “He's found something that's going to get him locked in and he's just riding with it right now.”

The Blue Jays are doing the same thing around him, too, improving to 8-1 on their 10-day road trip by scoring in double digits for the first time since a 10-3 win over St. Louis on July 26.

Alejandro Kirk’s two-run double and Santiago Espinal’s two-run single opened the scoring in the first. After Espinal’s RBI double, Raimel Tapia’s three-run homer and Bichette’s RBI double in the third, every hitter in the lineup crossed the plate before a weary crowd of 28,340.

All the offence came in handy on a night Kevin Gausman never seemed to lock into a rhythm. The Rangers ran his pitch count up early, Adolis Garcia hit three-run homer in the first that narrowed the Blue Jays lead to 4-3 and after he dodged traffic the next four frames, gave up a two-run shot to Sam Huff in the sixth that ended his night.

Gausman admitted to not being as sharp as he usually and making “a lot of mistakes,” though only two were especially costly. That made him all the more grateful for the collective performance of the offence and left him again marvelling at the exploits of Bichette.

“From a pitching standpoint, where are you supposed to go, especially with how hot he is right now?” he wondered. “You can just see the confidence when he gets in the box. He expects to hit a double or a home run every time right now. You can see it on his face. And it's really fun to watch every day.”

That he only got through 5.1 innings wasn’t ideal with the Blue Jays planning a bullpen game Sunday so they can push Jose Berrios, who’d be on turn for the finale, to Monday’s series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Zach Pop gave up a pair before escaping that sixth, while Anthony Bass, Adam Cimber and Tim Mayza handled the final three frames in a bit more leverage than the early innings might have suggested.

That leaves the Blue Jays with Trevor Richards, who’ll start just as he did a week ago in Pittsburgh, Yusei Kikuchi, David Phelps and Julian Merryweather fresh for Sunday having not pitched at all at Globe Life Field, with Yimi Garcia and Jordan Romano rested after throwing Friday.

"We're set up well," said Schneider. "Everyone's available for the most part."

Another big performance at the plate would certainly come in handy and Bichette can certainly help drive it. Over the past three weeks he’s turned a solid season into a strong one, dragging a Blue Jays team that’s needed it right along with him.

“This game is really difficult, really tough and a lot of guys can be broken – many people say it's a game of failure and he's not willing to fail,” said Martinez. “That's the biggest thing for me when I watch Bo. He's not willing to fail. And even though he's hasn't been where he wants to be, he comes out every single day and competes. He wants to be the best in the game and he doesn't give up. That's the biggest thing.”