QUEENS, NY — The stream of invective aimed toward Juan Soto when he makes his return to Yankee Stadium on Friday night will be relentless.
Tens of thousands of Bronx Bombers supporters will aim their rage directly upon the shoulders of the superstar right fielder, who turned down the chance to stay with the Yankees to jump across town to Queens, where Steve Cohen and the Mets were waiting with a North American-record $765 million contract.
This is unknown territory for the Yankees. Most ballplayers who make their way to the Bronx and find the kind of success that Soto had in Pinstripes last year (41 home runs, third in AL MVP voting) stay there, adding to the long list of greats and legends who have graced a patch of grass on 161st St.
Now, an intense, borderline unreasonable fan base is feeling scorned.
“I don’t mind,” Soto, who very much expects what is coming his way during this weekend, and added that he was most excited about the crowd, said in the Mets’ clubhouse following Wednesday night’s 4-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
His blockbuster move to the other side of the Big Apple will intensify the Subway Series in a way that has been sorely lacking since the early 2000s, minus Francisco Lindor and Giancarlo Stanton yapping at each other four years ago.
“A lot of emotions. He’s going back… [to a place with] good memories,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He had a really good year with them. Went to a World Series with them. Yeah, it’ll be exciting.”
The unspoken parts that loom over this matchup are simple: the Yankees would love to make a statement that they don’t need Soto. Capturing this series over this Mets team, which is one of the very best in baseball to start the 2025 campaign, would provide that sort of satisfaction, even if it is more so for the fans than the players.
But don’t let any media-trained answer fool you. There will be members of the Yankees who want to make that sort of statement this weekend.
For the Mets, this is their first on-field opportunity to show that the balance of power amongst New York’s baseball landscape has tilted in their favor for the first time in 40 years. The majority of the last two decades have featured postseason-less baseball, where a strong showing in the Subway Series provided a shred of solace for an organization stuck in neutral.
That has obviously changed since Cohen’s takeover, but Soto’s move only intensifies this newfound notion that the Mets have so much more to care about than this interleague rivalry.
“We’re ready to go,” Mendoza said. “It’ll be an exciting series. Two teams playing well. Two really good teams. I’m pretty sure it’ll be fun.”
