Before the New York Mets took the field Thursday for the final tilt in their series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Juan Soto’s season numbers had fans and analysts scratching their heads.
With a 115 wRC+ and just three homers, Soto’s bat hadn’t exactly been singing its usual tune. For a guy who once put up a wRC+ of 180 over a full season and owns a career mark of 157, it felt like watching a race car stuck in second gear.
Sure, 115 isn’t awful—it’s actually well above league average—but when you’re talking about a hitter of Soto’s caliber, the bar’s set at the stratosphere.
To call his season a struggle would be painting with too broad a brush, though. If you looked beyond the box scores, the contact he’d been making was the kind of stuff that typically earns pitchers a ticket to the showers.
Line drives, screaming doubles, just unlucky results. Sometimes baseball’s cruel like that—hitting lasers right into gloves.
Cracking the Code
Then came Thursday, when Soto didn’t just tap the brakes on the critics—he slammed the gas pedal through the floor.
Two home runs later, any whispers about a slow start were drowned out by the sound of his bat meeting baseball with authority. The Mets still lost the game, but Soto’s swing made a statement.
And when asked if the performance lifted any weight off his shoulders, Soto responded with the kind of calm defiance that makes him who he is. “What pressure? I don’t have any pressure,” he told SNY.
That’s not arrogance—it’s confidence baked by years of proving doubters wrong. You don’t hit like Soto hits, at his age, without a sturdy internal compass.
Heating Up at the Right Time
The truth is, this wasn’t a man waking up—it was a man already hot, finally getting the results. Baseball’s a funny game like that. You can hit the ball on the screws for a week straight and have nothing to show for it, and then suddenly, the dam breaks.
Soto’s been on the verge, and Thursday might have been the floodgate opening. These exit velocities were on batted balls before his home runs:
If this is the start of one of those signature Soto streaks—the kind where pitchers suddenly find no safe place to throw—then buckle up. The swing looks right, the approach hasn’t changed, and the swagger? Still fully intact.