Will We Get a Bo Bichette Turnaround Moment This Season?

[Mike LeSage]

The 2025 Blue Jays had a season so magical we’re likely to talk about it for a generation. The home stretch and finish of the season is what will stick the most in our memories, while the start of the season might have been mostly forgotten if not for the team seeming to play the same song again this year. Through 36 games last year, the Jays were 16-20, a record identical to that of this year’s team. Last year, they started May with a pair of wins and then dropped four in a row – again, identical to this season.

The game and the at-bat many credited with turning the team around last season happened towards the end of May.

Going into their game on May 28, 2025, the Blue Jays held a 26-28 record and sat third in the AL East. Through eight innings, Toronto had left eight runners on base and was mired in a 0-0 draw with Texas (five Jays pitchers on a bullpen day combined to one-hit the Rangers and keep the game within reach). Ernie Clement led off the ninth inning with a single and was standing on second base with two outs in what looked like a carbon copy of so many failed innings before it. That was, of course, until Bo Bichette, called on as a pinch-hitter for the first time in his career, took an 0-1 pitch, sent it into the front row of the left field bleachers and single-handedly turned the Jays' season around.

That might seem like hyperbole, but Jesse Burrill wrote, “You could argue this was the point where everything started for this team.” Manager John Schneider touted that game as the one that flipped the switch and put the Jays on the path they ended up on. They would win nine of their next 10, get above .500 and put themselves in position to take over the division by July.

Now, with Bichette gone, where might we find that spark? Cory Sparks looked at how Ernie Clement is doing so far as a Bichette replacement, and while the power profiles are certainly different, Clement has had enough clutch hits that he could come up with the spark that ignites the season. If we’re looking for a power bat to light things up, we shouldn’t have to look further than the returning Addison Barger. Sam Charles talked about the roster ramifications of Barger’s return, and maybe it will be one of the guys that keeps a roster spot that comes up with the magic. It’s early May, and it’s a long season, but if Toronto is going to turn the ship around, that work needs to start this month.

Of course, for the flip side, we don’t have to go any further back than the season before the magical ‘25. Through 36 games in 2024, the Jays sported a record of, you guessed it, 16-20. The turning point we’re looking for now never came for that team, and they never got above .500 and would sit fifth in the division from mid-June until game 162. Through some combination of parity, luck and schedule oddities, this year’s Jays team is only a game and a half out of a Wild Card spot. On May 7, 2025 they were 3.0 back, and it was 4.5 games on the same date in 2024. We seem to be at a crossroads, and the path that is taken from here will make all the difference.

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