Blue Jay Bo Bichette shows no fear entering his first post-season against the Rays: ‘It’s zero per cent intimidating’

Blue Jay Bo Bichette shows no fear entering his first post-season against the Rays: ‘It’s zero per cent intimidating’ | The Star

“,”heading”:””,”fullWindow”:false,”fullBleed”:false,”showFullBleedOnMobile”:false,”headColor”:””,”type”:”html5mobile”,”textColor”:””,”mobileImageUrl”:””,”bgColor”:””,”imageUrl”:””,”registeredOnly”:false,”linkUrl”:””,”internalScroll”:false,”displayStyle”:”small-up”},{“type”:”textBreakPoint”,”insertAt”:”contentLongBreakPoint”},{“text”:”Bichette actually grew up down the road from Tropicana Field, though it’s still a dumb state of affairs that MLB is allowing this wild-card series to take place in Florida, COVID-19 central, while the Tampa Bay Lightning pursue a Stanley Cup in hermetically sealed Edmonton.”,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“type”:”cta”,”buttonText”:”Sign Up Now”,”buttonLink”:”/emails.html?nsrc=article-inline-sportsheadlines”,”description”:”Never miss the latest on the Leafs, Jays, Raptors and more with the Star’s Sports Headlines email newsletter.”,”title”:”Get more sports in your inbox”},{“text”:”Probably doesn’t matter much that the stands will be vacant either, because that’s how the season has rolled. It’s not like the Rays will have last line change. The Jays, states Bichette, will garner their energy from within.”,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“text”:”“There’s nobody in the stands, but there’s a lot of people watching. This is stuff that we’ve grown up wanting to accomplish, playing in the playoffs. So there’s not much more need for adrenalin. Everybody’s going to be locked in. To be honest, in the playoffs you’re so locked in, you hardly realize that there are people in the stands.””,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“text”:”This version of Bichette, he adds, is improved over the novice who took the Jays by storm 14 months ago.”,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“type”:”ad”,”heading”:”ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW”,”name”:”ArticleThirdBigBox”,”display”:”medium-down”,”pos”:”3″,”interstitial”:true,”sizes”:[[300,250]]},{“text”:”“I’ve become a much better ballplayer. Smarter. I’m in better shape, all of that. In terms of looking forward to my first post-season experience, it’s going to be fun.”,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“type”:”textBreakPoint”,”insertAt”:”contentEndBreakPoint”},{“text”:”“We’re ready to go, man.””,”type”:”text”,”isParagraph”:true},{“text”:”

Rosie DiManno

is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

@rdimanno

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By Rosie DiMannoStar Columnist

Tue., Sept. 29, 2020timer5 min. read

updateArticle was updated 1 day ago

Back in BCE — Before the Coronavirus Era — on a lovely morning at spring training, Bo Bichette was talking about Bo ’n’ baseball.

“You just have to have it. And I have it.”

That thing he does so well. Not being smug, just being forthright.

He’d been the It Guy last season, with a razzle-dazzle debut in the majors — a half-dozen hits in that “here I am” July weekend at Kansas City, setting a major-league record with 10 extra-base hits in his first nine games, a benchmark for most consecutive games with a double, and finished the season with a .311 average.

He was the quintessential Blue Jays brand at the dawn of a new baseball epoch for Toronto, manifested in youth, to-drool-for talent and buoyant self-confidence.

Impossible to duplicate in such a warped 2020, even if a freak right knee sprain hadn’t cost Bichette 27 games on the IL. But the 22-year-old will have to be the Bo of ’19 vintage sparkle if the Jays hope to sidle past American League-tops Tampa Bay in the best-of-three hustle that lets fly Tuesday afternoon at Tropicana Field.

Of surprise to no one, Bichette oozes aplomb. Which has been the grace note of this team through all the tortuous twists of a season beset by pandemic, bubble existence, eviction from the Rogers Centre, three weeks of homelessness and fortunes that both cratered and crested.

What’s a little Blake Snell left-handed dealing on the mound compared to all that? It don’t say boo to Bo.

He sums up what the Jays bring to the series in one word: “Talent.”

“We’re going to play hard, we’re going to play for each other,” the shortstop told reporters in a Zoom session before a workout at the creepiest ballpark in the majors, where there’s scarcely any difference between pandemic emptiness and minuscule fan attendance at the best of times. “We believe in each other; that’s really it. We’re going to go out there and play hard and we’ve got the talent to surprise people.”

The Jays haven’t actually squared off with the Rays since Aug. 24, splitting that four-game complement. They’re not the same outfit as then, ripened from those dog days of summer.

“We had a ton of tight games, not just with the Rays,” Bichette reminds. Five of 10 were one-run outcomes and three went to extra innings. “Going through that made us a lot better as a team, a lot more together. We learned a lot from it … To have the experience of playing them really tight — it happened in a lot of games in the series that we lost and we thought we should have won — that gives us a lot of confidence coming in here.”

Could be they’re just too frisky to fully appreciate the challenge of knocking off the playoff-wizened Rays, on their home turf. Arrivistes to the post-season, most of them, they don’t know what they don’t know. Although, of course, two out of three is a crapshoot for everybody.

“I would say it’s zero per cent intimidating,” Bichette avers. “We understand that they’re a good team. From top to bottom, they do everything really well. But we’re not intimidated at all. We’ve played them tons in the past.”

With a 79-123 record, historically, at the Trop. Of course, Bichette et al don’t give a fig for history.

These are two teams well-versed with each other and not only because skipper Charlie Montoyo spent more than two decades coaching and managing in the Rays’ system before getting the gig in Toronto.

“We’ve seen them, you know?” says Bichette. “They’re definitely really good, no doubt about it. But if we go out there and we trust ourselves and just let our talent go, believe in ourselves, I think we’ve got a really good shot.”

He’s 1-for-2 versus Snell, career, so not much to base any analytics on. (Also, metrics is mostly twaddle. Nevertheless, and stunningly, Toronto isn’t starting ace Hyun-Jin Ryu in Game 1, Montoyo spending most of his Monday chat with reporters trying to justify the decision.)

“With Blake, he’s got really good stuff, obviously,” Bichette observes. “He’s got a Cy Young and this year he seems like he’s back in form. We just have to be aggressive, but at the same time we’ve got to make sure he’s in the zone. He throws hard, he’s got a really good breaking ball and so it’s going to take us being locked in to get to him. But I think we’re capable of it.”

Montoyo claims his players had preferred the Rays as an opponent, even before the matter was settled with Sunday’s game 60 loss to Baltimore. Bichette says … meh. “I would say that we didn’t care who we played. I would say that we didn’t mind playing Tampa, that’s for sure.”

Bichette actually grew up down the road from Tropicana Field, though it’s still a dumb state of affairs that MLB is allowing this wild-card series to take place in Florida, COVID-19 central, while the Tampa Bay Lightning pursue a Stanley Cup in hermetically sealed Edmonton.

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Probably doesn’t matter much that the stands will be vacant either, because that’s how the season has rolled. It’s not like the Rays will have last line change. The Jays, states Bichette, will garner their energy from within.

“There’s nobody in the stands, but there’s a lot of people watching. This is stuff that we’ve grown up wanting to accomplish, playing in the playoffs. So there’s not much more need for adrenalin. Everybody’s going to be locked in. To be honest, in the playoffs you’re so locked in, you hardly realize that there are people in the stands.”

This version of Bichette, he adds, is improved over the novice who took the Jays by storm 14 months ago.

“I’ve become a much better ballplayer. Smarter. I’m in better shape, all of that. In terms of looking forward to my first post-season experience, it’s going to be fun.

“We’re ready to go, man.”

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno