Bo Bichette's torrid start continues with display of power vs. Rays
Bo Bichette has hit the major leagues running at full speed, and just over a week into his career he is making a habit of adding his name to Toronto Blue Jays history with every game he plays.
He got his first hit right away, followed that with his first home run shortly after, and hasn’t gone a game without picking up at least a hit yet.
On Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays, Bichette started off his third series in the bigs in the same style, immediately picking up a double to lead off the game before coming around to score on a Cavan Biggio single.
Bichette’s double made it eight straight games with a hit, tying the franchise lead for longest-such streak to start a career — Jesse Barfield in 1981 and Ryan Goins in 2013 also reached the mark.
That would be all well and good and worthy of acclaim on its own, but as we’ve come to expect already with Bichette, he was far from done.
In his second plate appearance, leading off the top of the third, he put his name atop another team list:
The ball flies off Bo’s bat. 👀 pic.twitter.com/bhPmTMmQzT
— MLB (@MLB) August 6, 2019
That home run — to the opposite field, on a breaking ball from one of the best curveball pitchers in the game — jumped off the bat at 102.7 mph, giving Bichette his third of the season in just eight games.
If that sounds like a pretty impressive feat for someone so early into a career, that’s because it is. Only Carlos Delgado hit that many that quickly for the team, and he ended up hitting 473 of them when all was said and done in his 17 year career.
Bo Bichette is also now the 2nd player in #LetsGoBlueJays history to record 3 home runs in his first 8 career games, joining Carlos Delgado (1993).
— Rodney Hiemstra (@therodbot) August 6, 2019
Bichette now has multiple hits in five of his eight major league games, and has picked up multiple extra-base hits in a contest three times.
And if that seems like a lot of extra base hits — nine, to be exact — you’re once again correct in being impressed. He tied the major league record for extra base hits through the first eight games of a career, as well.
With homer and double in 2-0 #BlueJays win tonight, Bo Bichette now has nine extra-base hits, tied with Alvin Davis (1984) and Trevor Story (2016) for most through a player’s first eight games since tracking began in 1908.
— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) August 6, 2019
Normally when a player gets off to such a scorching start to a career, the common practice is to pump the brakes a little bit to temper expectations. But if Bichette’s early career performance has taught us anything, it’s that the excitement is just getting started.
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