Bo Bichette calmly faces the boos: I actually think it came a bit late.

Bo Bichette said that during his seven seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, he never heard more than scattered boos. This isn’t hard to understand. Bichette hit .311 in his rookie season and rarely faltered afterward, being selected as an All-Star multiple times as a Blue Jays player. In his final year, he led the team to just one victory away from the World Series championship.

Coming to Queens, New York? Bichette heard boos within just two games, and after three games the boos had grown loud enough to be impossible to ignore. Bichette understands this. After the Mets lost 3–4 to the Pittsburgh Pirates today, when asked if he expected to face boos so quickly after joining the Mets, Bichette joked: “If anything, I actually think it came a bit late.”

“But I understand,” he added, “I also think my plate appearances have been terrible.”

To some extent, Bichette’s self-assessment is overly harsh. In his first plate appearance as a Mets player, he hit a sacrifice fly. That game also included several long battles at the plate, including a 13-pitch plate appearance during the fifth inning rally. But Bichette also struck out three times, and has struck out multiple times in each game since, with a overall strikeout rate of 53.3%. Although this is an extremely small sample of just 15 plate appearances, Bichette’s strikeout rate is already more than 3.5 times his rate from last season.

In a post-game interview, Bichette attributed his performance to the pressure he felt after signing a $126 million three-year contract with the Mets. He said that from the day of signing, he wanted to introduce himself to the fans with a “highlight moment.” This mindset led to him having only one hit in his first 14 at-bats of the season.

“I didn’t expect this, but I definitely felt that desire to deliver a highlight moment for my teammates and for the fans,” Bichette said, “This is something I need to control… I didn’t expect it to affect how I play.”

Anyone who predicted Bichette would have a slow start to the new season likely guessed the problem would be on defense, given his shift from shortstop to third base. Although Bichette indeed experienced growing pains defensively, the impact on the team is far less than his minor hitting slump. When the team heads to St. Louis for a three-game series against the Cardinals tomorrow, Bichette will step into the batting cage, his laboratory to try to solve the problem.

“You could say the season is still early, but I really need to figure it out,” Bichette said, “I’ve done it before, just under different circumstances.”

If he needs advice, Bichette only needs to look to the left. Shortstop Francisco Lindor also struggled in his first season in Flushing after signing a nine-figure contract in 2021, and has since produced MVP top-ten performances every year.

“He’s one of the best hitters in the league,” Lindor said about Bichette, “He’ll deliver many highlight moments for us. This is all normal, we fully support him. We know what kind of hitter he is. He’ll produce results. He’ll succeed more often than fail, and I can’t wait to see him get into form.”