Soto called 2022 a 'failure' and says he feels 'good' at the plate even through the starts and stops caused by injury scares this past month
This is the Juan Soto we had heard about, the one we had seen from time to time on the television — in the World Series and the All-Star game and on highlight show after highlight show. This is the guy so many thousands of people were in their Petco Park seats nearly an hour early to see last Aug. 2. This is the guy who has done things only the greats were doing at his age.Even after going 0-for-3 March 18 in his first game back from the World Baseball Classic, Soto batted .
The smile says he is comfortable. And that might be the most important thing for the Padres — that Soto enjoying himself is allowing him to be himself after struggling though the most difficult year of his career. Soto does laugh when it is pointed out that even as he batted just .236/.388/.390 with the Padres, he still contributed at a level that was well above what most players do.
This was the player who arrived having amassed the second-highest OPS in the major leagues since his MLB debut in 2018 — behind only Mike Trout. The Padres’ decision-makers continually expressed their amazement at how good Soto’s bad was. There was never anything like an assessment the trade had not turned out well. There were constant reminders by everyone that the purpose of the deal was to have Soto for three postseason runs.
Mostly, however, the evaluation from the Padres and those close to Soto was that a season like none he had experienced was the greatest cause of a season like none he had turned in.
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