Padres' Juan Soto lights up Nationals Park again
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At his locker in the visitors’ clubhouse, after beating his old team with two singles, a walk and a towering solo shot — after Juan Soto had promised to homer Tuesday night, after he made good on the promise, after he looked much like the player who used Nationals Park as a trampoline to stardom — a reporter asked him, perhaps rhetorically, if he liked hitting in the stadium.
“Can you tell?” Soto said, answering the question with a question and his familiar grin. When he returned to Washington in August, less than two weeks after the Nationals traded him to the San Diego Padres, Soto collected four hits and four walks in the three-game series. Then, he was still bitter about how the past month had transpired. He was angry that a 15-year, $440 million contract offer, an offer he rejected, had leaked to the press. He was bummed to leave the club that signed him out of the Dominican Republic when he was 16. Following back-to-back deadline sell-offs for the Nationals, he seemed to miss his friends.
And while there was some of that Tuesday, including Soto calling this return “tough” and “emotional,” his postgame interview felt like the many he had done down the hall: He was honest, funny and sure of himself to the point of shrugging off incredible athletic feats, such as predicting a homer or blasting it 441 feet off Erasmo Ramírez. Soto is, of course, no stranger to taking over games in Washington. The latest was the Padres’ series-opening win.
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“It feels a little different, you know?” Soto said, comparing his two trips back to Nationals Park. “Definitely last year was a little bit more emotional. This year was emotional, but it was more happy. I feel more happy instead of being sad about being traded and everything like that. I was more excited to be out there and play for those fans instead of feeling sad.”
After a slow start, Soto — 24 now, if you can believe it — has found his usual rhythm. In the past four weeks, he has a 1.093 OPS and has reached base in 46 percent of his plate appearances. Entering Wednesday, he was up to nine homers and led the majors with 42 walks. So when he arrived in D.C. again Tuesday, he could hang on the cage during early batting practice, wearing sandals instead of cleats or sneakers.
As his teammates hit, he caught up with Dave Martinez, the Nationals’ manager, and Henry Blanco, their catching and strategy coach. That’s when Soto told Blanco he was going to homer against the Nationals. And after he went yard in the seventh, he looked at Blanco in Washington’s dugout and smiled.
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“It’s where everything started,” Soto said of Nationals Park. “It’s where my dreams started off and it feels amazing to get in that box, even if I’m in another team’s uniform. I know all the metrics of this field. I know how far I have to hit it, how hard I got to hit it. So it feels amazing to be in there.”
He needed to crush the ball 441 feet to clear the 402-foot wall in center?
“Just putting on a show for the fans,” he said, flashing another grin. Before his first at-bat, the umpire called time so Soto could tip his helmet to the crowd’s standing ovation. Then he smacked MacKenzie Gore’s first-pitch fastball for a 113-mph single. Gore was one of the five prospects San Diego dealt for Soto. The others are shortstop CJ Abrams, who homered against the Padres on Tuesday, and minor leaguers James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana.
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Fair or not, their careers will forever be measured in Soto’s long shadow. Will the return have been worth it in the end, when there are tangible ways to assess Washington’s rebuild? Or is it already worth it because Soto seemed set on testing free agency after the 2024 season, meaning the Nationals had to act at the highest point of their leverage or risk losing him for a lesser package at a future trade deadline?
In this equation, Soto is the known variable, a generational talent with years and years of mashing ahead. Gore, Abrams, Wood, Hassell and Susana are varying shades of promising with no guarantees. The Nationals have to live with that.
“You really don’t know,” Martinez said ahead of the series. “The beauty of it is you get these guys in the organization and you have a chance to coach each and every one of them and see their growth. And then all of a sudden, they develop into something and you say: ‘Hey, wait a minute. … This guy can do this and he can do that. He can help us.’ ”
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As the Padres’ clubhouse wound down Tuesday, Soto and Nelson Cruz ate dinner together in a side room. Cruz, 42 and Soto’s teammate in Washington last year, sat in the corner of a leather couch, leaning in close to speak with Soto. Soto was in a big leather chair, working through a plate of steak, penne pasta with red sauce and two rolls. He and Cruz laughed and laughed, paying little attention to the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics playing on TV. Soto had brought a tall bottle of orange juice from the kitchen and kept filling his Gatorade cup.
Most players spend their whole careers trying to figure out where home is. For Soto, that has been Santo Domingo, a few minor league stops, then Washington and San Diego. He bought a house in Arlington before last summer’s trade, mostly as an investment yet at least partly because he saw himself here long-term. He does dream of settling down one day. He’s human, after all.
But as Soto has repeated since last summer, baseball at its highest levels is often shrewd business. Home becomes wherever there’s a batter’s box and a ball to hit, especially when a player hits a ball better than most on the planet. It’s no wonder he looked so comfortable Tuesday night.
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Source: The Washington Post
