Impact of Soto's first year with Mets still on deck

There are plenty of reasons why the Mets have struggled the way they have to this point in their season, especially over the past month. Juan Soto isn’t close to being a big one. Or some kind of big bust. He’s not -- as easy a target as he is because of the money he’s making, and because the team has struggled and because, well, it’s New York.

Are his offensive numbers slightly down across the board from what they were with the Yankees a year ago? They are, up there in the bright lights of the big city for everybody to see. Soto put himself into a hole early, posting a .701 OPS through April (pedestrian by his standards), and has been trying to hit his way out of it ever since.

Soto still hit his 32nd home run on Friday night against the Braves: There are only three players in the National League with more homers and two of them are named Schwarber and Ohtani, who are going to end up running 1-2 for MVP in the league.

Soto still has a shot at hitting 40 home runs the way he did for the Yankees. He might even make a run at 100 RBIs before he’s through, despite his batting average -- .251 – 30 points below his career average. All that said, if this is what passes for an off-year for Soto in his first year with the Mets, guess what? It just reminds you just how talented a hitter he is, before reaching his 27th birthday.

In a season when the spotlight on Soto has been as big as it’s ever been in his life because of that $765 million contract he signed last winter, it’s not as if he’s fallen down the way his team so often has lately. And there is still enough season left for him to show the same kind of finishing kick the Mets did a year ago.

He did start slowly, without question. His OPS is still under .900. His slugging percentage is at .500 after being .569 with the Yankees. His on-base percentage is at .386 after being .419 with the Yankees.

Perhaps most notably, since June 1, he’s hitting .269/.411/.574, which is right in line with his numbers from a year ago. And he also added a baserunning element to his game, stealing a career-high 20 bases in 21 attempts. You still have to wonder how everybody would look at what he’s done so far if the Mets had pitched a whole lot better than they have.

Last night in Atlanta, in a game the Mets ended up winning 12-7 after another strong start from rookie Nolan McLean, Soto had three hits, scored two and knocked in four as the Mets moved 1 1/2 games up on the Reds (who lost) for the final National League Wild Card spot. Soto also walked two more times, getting to 100 walks for the sixth time in his career. Our Sarah Langs (researcher extraordinaire) points out that nobody in the National or American League has accomplished that that many times before turning 27.

And there really is still enough regular season left to change a narrative that has a lot of Mets fans grumping about his performance, and frankly making it sound way worse than it’s been. So much of this has been because this Mets season has been the opposite of what it was a year ago, when they started out 22-33 before finishing the way they did. This time, they’ve had an abysmal 27-36 record since starting out 41-24.

Nobody likes where the Mets are, or the way they’ve looked for months and especially the way they’ve pitched. Nobody’s liked watching all those blown leads. But a year ago, on their way to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, the Mets had a record of 67-61 at this same point in their season. After beating the Braves on Friday, their record stood at 68-60.

“Inexplicable,” manager Carlos Mendoza said during the Mets’ recent seven-game losing streak, “because of all the talent on this team.”

Soto is still the Mets' most complete hitter, by a lot, and one of the most complete in the game. He leads the Mets in home runs, OBP, runs scored and walks. Maybe even he didn’t fully understand how much pressure he had put on himself by signing that contract, and leaving the Yankees for the Mets after helping lead them to the World Series. Now he does.

"Since Day 1, we believe in each other and we believe we can make it to the playoffs," Soto said the other day. "We've just got to play better.”

He keeps showing up. The Mets have played 128 games this season and Soto has played 126 of them. He keeps showing up. It matters. Still plenty of time for him to show up even bigger the rest of the way. Still plenty more of his story, and the Mets' story, to be written.