New York Yankees star Juan Soto experienced what it’s like to walk off another foe in pinstripes. The high stakes, the adrenaline, the management of the at-bat, the crowd roaring, teammates racing to embrace in a hug, and the cold shower during the post-game interview. He got to experience it all on Thursday after a base hit of his gave the Yanks a victory over their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox.
Juan Soto was the hero versus the Boston Red Sox
He is a machine, almost a robot, with a .289/.418/.577 line, 115 runs scored, 39 home runs, 101 RBI, and a .996 OPS. Yet he showed, after the Yankees win, that he is very much human.
When asked about the cheers for Clay Holmes after getting out of the 10th inning in the postgame interview, Soto made it clear that the Yanks are all about standing up for each other through thick and thin.
“We know what kind of stuff he has. More than happy for him. At the end of the day, we’re family here. We’re all gonna struggle, we’re all gonna do good – we just gotta back up each other,” he said, per SNY.
The Yankees star had Holmes’ back
In case you have missed Holmes’ season to this point, he was almost unstoppable and unbeatable in the first couple of months. But he has hit a wall since mid-June and recently lost his closer job. The Yankees have been mixing and matching in the ninth inning for a few days, with Luke Weaver starting to separate himself from the pack.
If there was someone in the league that needed a scoreless outing, it was definitely Holmes. That’s why Soto cheered for him when he got Ceddanne Rafaela to ground out and Jarren Duran to fly out with a runner on second in the top of the tenth.
That performance right there put the Yankees in a position to walk off the Red Sox in the next turn, and they did just that thanks to Soto. He is not only a fantastic hitter and player: he is also an empathic dude and a good teammate.
