Juan Soto didn’t argue with the idea that not too long ago his game-changing sinking line drive Tuesday probably goes down as a fly out to right field.
But Soto’s luck has changed over the past two weeks, and so he wound up with an RBI double in the middle of a game-tying two-out eighth-inning rally that set the stage for the Mets’ 5-4 walk-off victory against the Nationals.
“Little by little, I just got to be patient,” Soto said. “Keep doing my thing. Really happy to see the ball landing now in some spots, and coming through in big moments. I’m just going to try to keep it the same way all the way.”
Soto threw a runner out at home plate in the second inning and homered in the third, but both plays would have been footnotes if not for the way he turned on left-hander Jose Ferrer’s 0-2 slider in the eighth.
Robert Hassell III misjudged the flight trajectory and the ball caromed away after his awkward dive. Soto came around to tie the score when Pete Alonso smacked the game-tying hit off the left field wall.
“I just try to hunt the mistakes,” Soto said. “I know that guy has nasty stuff. I’m just trying to stay locked into my zone.”
After a slow start to his Mets career — that he mostly blamed on hard-hit balls not falling — Soto is hitting .378 with an OPS approaching 1.300 over the past 11 games.
“How things are going, definitely I was hoping it to go down,” Soto laughed. “I was glad. I thought it was a little farther than it went, but that got it done.”
Nationals manager Dave Martinez knows the nomadic Soto’s swing as well as anyone: Soto’s first 2,439 career plate appearances were under Martinez’s watch, and they remain friendly even as Soto has bounced to three other teams.
Soto was 6-of-15 in a series against the Nationals in late April.
Martinez suggested that slumps for hitters of Soto’s caliber usually come from chasing or excessive swinging.
“We threw some pitches where we thought he should hit. He fouled them off,” Martinez said, thinking back to then. “Now he’s squaring those balls up. So, we have to be very careful. He can change the game in a heartbeat.”
Soto actually changed Tuesday’s game a few times.
His fifth outfield assist kept the Mets’ deficit at 3-0 and his solo homer off MacKenzie Gore cut the deficit to 3-2.
Gore — who was part of the Nationals’ return for trading Soto to the Padres — and Soto were jawing back and forth during three at-bats. The home run atoned for a three-pitching strikeout in the first inning.
“He got [Soto] the first at-bat, and then Soto took him deep,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Maybe they stare at each other. And the next time he got [Soto] out on one pitch. I thought they both handled it the way they should.”
Soto wasn’t about to share specifics.