The past few days haven't been kind to Juan Soto. The New York Mets' $765 million man entered last weekend's Subway Series showdown with the New York Yankees brimming with confidence, but left with just one hit in three games and everyone questioning whether he was already regretting his move to Queens over the offseason. A trip to Boston this week has somehow only made things worse: Soto still can't quite find it at the plate, and his failure to run hard out of the box on a fly ball off the Green Monster led to another (ridiculous) round of discourse about his hustle — or lack thereof.
Soto is slugging just .156 over his last nine games, and the media vultures are circling. At this point, the Mets are desperate to help him get going if only to put this whole saga in the rearview mirror and build some positive momentum. And the team's lineup for Wednesday's series finale against the Red Sox shows just how desperate they are to find some answers.
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New Mets lineup goes above and beyond to protect Juan Soto
After spending the entire season so far in the No. 2 spot, Soto will hit third against Garrett Crochet on Wednesday night. The goal here seems obvious: Put Soto directly in front of first baseman Pete Alonso, in the hope that the Polar Bear's protection will give Soto more strikes to swing at.
Straightforward enough. But that noble goal comes with some very awkward downstream effects. Splitting up Soto and Francisco Lindor requries finding someone else to put into the No. 2 hole — preferably a righty, so as to avoid doubling up on left-handed hitters and allowing the Red Sox an easy lane to deploy a lefty out of the bullpen late in games. The Mets don't have very many healthy players who fit that bill right now, forcing Carlos Mendoza to go with veteran outfielder Starling Marte, who currently boasts a .211/.315/.329 slash line.
At age 36, Marte is well past the point at which he's a viable middle-of-the-lineup threat; Mendoza can't feel great about hitting him second on Wednesday, even allowing for the fact that he hits lefties far better than he hits righties. But New York has decided that this sacrifice is a small price to pay in order to do what's best for Soto — getting him going is priority No. 1, for reasons both on-field and off, and every other concern is secondary.
If Soto finally busts out, all of those hand-wringing will be for nought; he's still one of the very best hitters in the sport, capable of taking a game over all by himself. If he doesn't, though — if the Mets did all this rejiggering for nothing — then we could be in for another round of controversy.