NEW YORK -- It has been 17 months since Juan Soto left the Yankees for the Mets on a 15-year contract, which apparently isn’t quite enough time for emotions to dull. Before Soto’s first at-bat of this year’s Subway Series on Friday, the Yankees fans in attendance at Citi Field roundly booed him while their Mets counterparts tried to drown them out with cheers.
Both camps had their say in a 5-2 Mets loss to the Yankees, which saw Soto shake off an early injury scare to homer for one of the Mets’ two runs. For Soto, it was something. For the Mets, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Instead, Soto’s homer proved to be the lone bright spot in a game that saw Cam Schlittler otherwise shut down the Mets over 6 2/3 innings, relying on his signature fastball mix to overpower many of them. In his first two at-bats, Soto was among the overpowered, going as far as to grimace and clutch at his back after swinging and missing at a Schlittler cutter in the fourth.
But Soto returned to the field on defense and, three innings later, took Schlittler to the opposite field for the Mets’ first run. It was Soto’s 250th career home run, making him one of only seven big leaguers to amass that many homers and at least 95 stolen bases before age 28. The other six are all legendary names: Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Mike Trout, Frank Robinson and Andruw Jones.
By the time Soto hit No. 250, however, the Yankees were firmly in control of Friday’s game. Another Yankee-turned-Met, Clay Holmes, delivered his least effective start of an otherwise brilliant season, cracking for three runs on four consecutive hits in the third, plus a fourth, inherited run after he left the game in the fifth.
It wasn’t exactly the Subway Series beginning the Mets wanted, especially given their momentum heading into the weekend -- wins in eight of their previous 12 games. But perhaps Soto’s performance offered modest hope for better things to come.
Early this season, Soto was plenty hot, batting .355 with a .928 OPS over his first eight games. But in the eighth of them, back on April 3, Soto strained his right calf running the bases in San Francisco and missed two and a half weeks. The Mets operated carefully with their $765 million man upon his return, using him exclusively at DH for a time.
This week, right as those shackles were loosening, Soto fouled a ball off his right ankle, which cost him the final three innings of Wednesday’s game against the Tigers. Then came Friday’s scare on a swing against Schlittler.
All the while, Soto’s performances were lacking. From May 3-13, he hit just .118 with a .449 OPS. He has since shaken that off to homer in consecutive games.