Fisher Cats' Bichette breaks loose at plate

Early this season, Bo Bichette tweaked his approach against more refined pitching game plans in Double-A, but New Hampshire hitting coach Hunter Mense thinks he might have overcompensated a little.
Shifting back to the approach that made him the leading hitter in the Minors last year, the second-ranked Blue Jays prospect is getting back on track.
Bichette homered, doubled twice, collected a season-high four RBIs and scored three times to lead Double-A New Hampshire to a 10-3 romp over Hartford at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., MLB.com's No. 2 overall prospect, went 3-for-4 with a dinger and two RBIs. The pair delivered-back-to-back roundtrippers in the seventh inning, marking the fourth time they've homered in the same game.

"I think early on in this season [Bichette] got away from what worked a little bit because of how he was being pitched -- he probably was being pitched a little differently than he was last year," Mense said. "I think it got to him and he started making adjustments off that. I think what you saw tonight is him getting back to what he does really well."
Bichette hit .292 through 20 games in April, but he fell into a 16-for-83 slide in May and saw his average fall to .244. But after going 2-for-4 on Thursday and collecting three hits against the Yard Goats, MLB.com's No. 11 overall prospect raised his average to .261 and his OPS to .759. 
Mense is impressed with how Bichette has handled himself through the tough month at the plate, noting the 20-year-old's attention to detail and voicing a belief that the early-season slump will prove beneficial to Bichette's long-term development.
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"It's been good for him to struggle, to be honest with you, because he's never done it," the hitting coach said. "For him to go through this, the next time he struggles it's going to be a shorter ride through these struggles, because he'll know how to get out of it. We talked the other day -- when he makes it to the big leagues, he's going to struggle at some point, too. Those struggles at the big leagues, those are the ones you want to be short. You can deal with them in the Minor Leagues. It's tough in the moment, but in the Minor Leagues you can fight through them.
"I can't imagine, and there's not a lot of people I've been around that can put themselves in his shoes and understand the pressure he's under. When you've led all of Minor League Baseball in hitting the previous year, when you've been named a top-15 prospect and you have a dad who's played in the big leagues, you put that together, that's a lot of pressure on a 20-year-old kid."
On Friday, Bichette bounced into a double play in the first inning but led off the fourth with a two-strike double to left field. Two batters later, he scored on a single by Blue Jays No. 19 prospect Cavan Biggio. 
"His first at-bat, he grounded out hard to [first baseman Brian Mundell]. He hit it hard into the ground," Mense said. "But for me that was a really good sign, just because when you see that out of him, he's trusting letting the ball get deep and he's really good at the backside of the zone."
He banged a first-pitch double to center off Jack Wynkoop in the sixth to plate 28th-ranked Jonathan Davis from first. Mense appreciated the way Bichette delivered both behind in the count and early in at-bats against the Yard Goats. 
"The best thing for him right now is to shrink the strike zone and a little bit early in counts," Mense said. "[Manager John Schneider] talked to him about it a couple of days ago. Just trying to cover the whole strike zone with less than two strikes, try to just cover a smaller of an area. I think that really resonated with him."
Using an aggressive approach again an inning later against reliever Rayan González, Bichette slugged the first offering over the left-center field wall for a three-run homer, his third of the year. On the next pitch, Guerrero slugged his 10th dinger over the right field fence. 
"It's been really cool. It's been fun to watch all season," Mense said. "I can't count on one finger the times they've gone up to the plate and there's some damage that wasn't going to be done. I think they go up there with some intent and their ability to put the barrel on the ball and put the barrel on the ball consistently is unbelievable. It's so fun to watch those two feed off of each other, pull for each other and pull for everyone on the team."
It was Bichette's first four-RBI game since July 18, 2016, when he finished 3-for-5 with a homer in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. In his third professional season, he sports a .344/.404/.548 slash line with 21 homers and 131 RBIs across 175 games. 
As for Guerrero, he improved his league-leading batting average and OPS to .435 and 1.211, respectively.
With all of the attention the Fisher Cats have gotten this season, Mense noted that the two prospects have handled being under the microscope with aplomb. 
"We have a great support staff from all our player development here," Mense said. "And we have a great support system from our players. We have five or six older guys that have been around and understand going about the game and can kind of help ease those guys through these things. It's stuff a lot of us, nobody, has really experienced before. It's us pulling into hotels at 12 at night and there are autograph seekers looking for their autographs. It's stuff that no 19- or 20-year-old kid has ever gone through in the Minor Leagues like this. 
"What it comes down to is, they're able to separate things and they're able to go out there, compete and have fun. At the end of the day, it's still baseball. When you get between the lines, it's still the same game."