Mets players, manager defend Juan Soto after he hears boos during loss to White Sox

According to David Lennon of Newsday, the boos directed toward New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto during the 9-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday afternoon “were perhaps the loudest he’s heard” during a home game this season. 

After Soto went 0-for-4 with a walk in that defeat, some of his teammates and his manager came to his defense. 

“I think he’s trying to do too much,” Mets third baseman Mark Vientos said about Soto while speaking with Bob Klapisch of NJ Advance Media. “There’s a lot of talk about his offensive struggles, and that’s all you hear. He cares. He just wants to be better. And I think he might be putting a little too much on his shoulders.”

The return of the so-called “Soto shuffle” on Wednesday seemingly did little to ease pressure related to his 15-year, $765M contract that may be causing him to press during at-bats. The 26-year-old failed to register a single hit during the series against a White Sox team that ended Wednesday at 18-38. His last home run occurred on May 9. 

“Hard to explain. But it’s baseball,” skipper Carlos Mendoza said about Soto’s slump, per Jerry Beach of the Associated Press. “Too good of a hitter. Too good of a player. He’ll be Juan Soto here.” 

What Soto has thus far been with the Mets is a .224 hitter who recorded eight homers and 25 RBI over his first 55 games. Soto admittedly has been a victim of some bad luck over the past two months, such as when a baserunning blunder committed by teammate Brandon Nimmo cost the slugger a double on Tuesday night. According to Baseball Savant, Soto began Thursday ranked fifth in all of MLB with a .420 expected weighted on-base average. To compare, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers had a league-best .473 xwOBA at that time. 

Beach added that Soto “ranks among the 90th percentile in several categories at Baseball Savant, though his bat speed ranks in the 73rd percentile, down from the 94th percentile last season.” Klapisch mentioned that Soto “is hitting 20 percent fewer line drives compared to” what he produced with the New York Yankees last season. 

“He sticks to his craft, pays attention to detail,” shortstop and unofficial Mets captain Francisco Lindor added about Soto. “It’s impressive when one of the elite players in the game stays with his system. Juan has been doing that since day one of spring training.”

That’s all well and good, but Soto will need to do more than just stay “with his system” during the three-game series against the woeful Colorado Rockies (9-47) that gets underway on Friday night to avoid hearing louder boos at Citi Field throughout the weekend. 

Meanwhile, the 34-22 Mets went into Thursday trailing the first-place Philadelphia Phillies (35-19) by two games in the National League East standings.