QUEENS, NY — The sparse crowd at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon for a hastily rescheduled game with the threat of inclement weather only magnified the growing unrest from Mets fans toward Juan Soto.
For the third time in four games, the superstar right-fielder and $765 million man went 0-for-4 at the plate during Wednesday’s series-finale loss to the Chicago White Sox, where the loudest boos to date were sent his way.
The first smattering came in when he led off the fifth inning with a swinging strikeout. It grew louder in each of his next two at-bats, which were weak groundouts to first base.
“You’re going to see frustration, especially with a competitor like he is,” manager Carlos Mendoza said when asked about Soto’s mindset.
Soto himself was not made available after the game.
While the start to his Mets career has not been up to the 26-year-old’s usual standards, it appears this is the lowest part of Soto’s valley. He is 2-for-27 in his last seven games with four walks and eight strikeouts.
Through his first 55 games as a Met, he is batting .224 with an OPS that has sunk to .745 and an OPS-plus of 115. The league average is 100.
Yes, there is an undeniable amount of bad luck throughout all of this. Soto’s analytics suggest that his batting average should be 70 points higher and his slugging percentage should not be at .393, but at .569.
Over these last seven games, Soto has put five balls in play that have left his bat at over 100 mph, yet five of them have been outs — the most peculiar of them all coming on Tuesday night when Brandon Nimmo, who was on first, believed that Soto’s 109.9 mph bullet to center was caught. It wasn’t, and Soto passed him between first and second as he retreated for an out.
It was scored as a groundout to first.
“It’s just one of those things. When you look at the eye test — I don’t have to go to the analytics and underlyings because the guy continues to hit the ball hard,” Mendoza said. “Maybe he’s hitting more ground balls, but [Tuesday] was a perfect example of his season so far: 0-for-4 with three balls hit over 100 mph, and one of them goes down as a groundball to first base when he hits a bullet to right field. It’s hard to explain. But that’s baseball. He’s too good of a hitter, too good of a player. He’ll be Juan Soto.”
