Washington Nationals outfielder Juan Soto beat himself up after lack of hustle on a popup during Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles.
In MLB, we sometimes see the manager get angry at their player if they fail to hustle on a routine play. For the Washington Nationals, no coach needed to do so, because outfielder Juan Soto really beat himself up following a lapse of judgement during Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Soto stepped into the batters box with Andrew Stevenson on third base with two outs on the board while holding a 5-4 lead. On a 3-2 count, Soto hit a high popup just in front of home plate that appeared to be an easy out by catcher Pedro Severino. Instead, the ball dropped and Stevenson scored. The problem was that Soto had to hustle to first base after staring at the popup and was called out at first.
Juan Soto with maybe the toughest non hustle play of this MLB season pic.twitter.com/ZX9xJhNBLp
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 23, 2021
Not only did Soto end the inning, but he also prevented Stevenson from scoring. Soto was so upset with himself, that hitting coach Kevin Long had to talk with the outfielder in the dugout to try and calm him down.
#Nats’ hitting coach Kevin Long was just caught on MASN’s cameras trying to get Juan Soto to stop beating himself up over not running out the infield pop that ended the 4th: pic.twitter.com/uWYPaRndvx
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) May 23, 2021
Nationals: Juan Soto hard on himself after lack of hustle play
Nationals fans were no doubt won over by Soto kicking himself over a mistake that he made. The good thing is, the lapse in judgement was not costly. The Nationals ended up winning 6-5, thanks to Stevenson being walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth inning.
We can assure, based off Soto’s reaction, that he will never make this mistake again in his career.