Juan Soto had a busy first inning in the Mets’ series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night.
After ripping a double in his first at-bat in the top of the first and getting stranded at third base, Soto was immediately put to the test in the bottom half of the inning when George Springer lined one to left field.
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Playing aggressive on the artificial turf that can sometimes be tricky at Rogers Centre, Soto charged in on the ball thinking he had a chance to catch it. After realizing the ball was going to drop, Soto pulled back and was ready to play it on a hop, except the ball bounced over his glove and trickled towards the left-field wall.
“I was actually trying to think right before that [play] to come through the ball because weird hops and everything,” Soto said. “Just took a weird hop on me and bounced a little differently.”
To make matters worse, A.J. Ewing, who was backing up on the play, got to the ball in a hurry but had it pop out of his glove on the exchange which allowed Springer to run around the bases and score the game’s first run.
And while only Ewing was charged with an error, the play began with Soto who spoke about what went wrong on the play and his thought process after the game.
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“When you have an outfield like that [where the ball] bounces a lot, you have to be aware because you can give up extra-base hits really easily,” he said. “You just gotta be aggressive, that was my mindset. Just be aggressive, come through the ball instead of trying to play back and maybe bounce over my head, but I actually just stopped.”
Despite the misplay, interim manager Andy Green came to the defense of Soto who made some nice plays in the outfield after the first inning blunder.
Just like Soto said, Green saw his outfielder trying to be ultra aggressive on the play and mentioned it’s actually a common occurrence at this stadium.
“I think he’s playing it aggressively on the outset hoping to get to it because he made a lot of really good catches out there today,” Green said. “… I think he’s playing it aggressively hoping to get to it and sometimes on turf if you get caught in between – I think every single time I’ve come to Toronto I’ve seen that particular play, not necessarily the finish of that play, A.J. usually makes that transfer fine, but that play happens frequently here and it got us in the first.”
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The comedy of errors made it a 1-0 game in the first inning and Sean Manaea did a good job of keeping it there until he allowed a second run in the fifth. Unfortunately for the left-hander, other than a Francisco Lindor solo shot in the seventh, the Mets’ offense couldn’t get much going all night and lost 2-1, making the run scored in the first inning the difference in the game.
“I thought I had a chance and then it just kept dying,” Soto said. “Definitely thought [I had] a good first step, but the ball just kept dying.”
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