Bichette Is Now a .300 Hitter After His Three-Hit Performance

Coming into Sunday’s game against the Seattle Mariners, Angel rookie Dante Bichette had a potful of potential and a row full of zeros behind him.

Playing in three of the Angels’ first five games, starting two, Bichette had no hits and no walks, the only numbers gracing his line were two strikeouts. All in all, great numbers for a pitcher, but Dante Bichette is an outfielder.

Then Sunday rolled around, and with it Steve Trout, the batters’ friend. Trout was the Mariners’ starting pitcher Sunday and brought with him a 27.00 earned-run average.

Of course, that’s not an accurate gauge of Trout’s talent. Consider that his 1988 ERA was 7.83.

Still, Angel Manager Doug Rader said his team “went into this game against Trout with a pretty good conception of how things were going to turn out.”

Two and a third innings, eight runs and eight hits later, it was apparent to everyone else in Anaheim Stadium who watched the Angels go on to win, 13-5.

The Angels scored four runs in the first inning, two on Bichette’s first major league home run. He would end the day three for five with two RBIs and two runs scored.

Bichette went from hitting .000 to .300 (three of 10), from no total bases to six, from struggling rookie to struggling rookie with a little something under his belt.

“This has got to give you confidence,” he said.

Bichette, 25, has never been lacking in energy or talent--in 1986, he and Willie Fraser were voted the Angels’ top minor league prospects. What he did run short on was patience. In 50 major league at-bats last season, he had exactly no walks. He pressed.

Even when things went well, they turned out badly. Take what should have been his first major league home run, hit against the Minnesota Twins last season, except that Kirby Puckett, who makes a habit of doing such things, jumped up and caught the ball over the fence, stealing Bichette’s glory.

He got his first major league hit, a single, in Kansas City. He was awarded the ball and planned to send it home to his father, Mike, in Florida. But, somehow, he lost the ball.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “That won’t happen with this one.”

Bichette referred to the home run ball he retrieved by trading the fan who caught it an autographed bat. The ball was placed on the top shelf of Bichette’s locker.

“This one is not getting out of my sight.”

Not until he sends it to his father.

Bichette, who spent five seasons in the minor leagues before being called up at the end of last season, was a long shot to make this season’s team. Especially since the Angels signed outfielder Claudell Washington.

But room was made when Bichette hit .388 with four home runs and 17 RBIs during the spring.

During the off-season, he had purchased a pitching machine to hit off and a video camera from which to study himself. Mostly he wanted to work on what Angel hitting coach Deron Johnson stressed, waiting on the pitch.

“I used to hit off my front foot, I was a lunger,” Bichette said. “Deron told me to wait on the ball.

“He told me it was human nature for people to press. That everyone tries to hit eight-run homers at first. He told me just to relax and play ball and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Of course, there is relaxing and then there is relaxing. Bichette got his third hit in the eighth inning, a ground-ball single down the first-base line. As he rounded first, Seattle outfield Darnell Coles slipped while fielding the ball in shallow right. Coles stayed on the ground, apparently injured.

Bichette took a few steps off first. Coles remained on the ground. Bichette stood and stared.

“I couldn’t figure out what he (Bichette) was doing,” Rader said. “I didn’t know if he thought there was a penalty on the play or what.”

Finally, with the crowd yelling for him to go, Bichette half-heartedly took off for second.

“I really didn’t want to go,” he said. “I didn’t want to rub it in with us being ahead as much as we were. He (Coles) really looked hurt.”

Well, you know what they say about nice guys. Coles, from his knees, threw Bichette out at second.

“I guess I’m still learning,” Bichette said.

Still, it’s much easier to study with something already in the books.