Freddy Peralta didn’t need convincing that Juan Soto was a great hitter. But being on the same side of the field? That’s a different kind of education.
The Mets right-hander watched Soto deliver a go-ahead three-run homer off Braves All-Star closer Raisel Iglesias in Monday’s 7-6 win at Truist Park. Then he sat in the clubhouse and tried to explain what it’s like sharing a dugout with the guy.
“He’s amazing in general. Now I understand why. I’ve been next to him a lot,” Peralta told reporters after the game, via SNY. “His mentality is at another level. It’s something we can take from him and learn from him too at his young age. Because he still is young, that’s the crazy part about it.”
Soto turned on a 98-mph fastball in the eighth inning and didn’t miss. The ball landed in the left-field seats and gave the Mets a 5-3 lead that almost evaporated when Matt Olson tied it with a two-run shot of his own in the ninth. Luis Torrens bailed them out with a two-run double in the 10th.
But the game, and the series, really turned on that one swing from Soto. The Mets split the four-game set after dropping the first two. That’s not nothing, considering they’re sitting 15 games behind the Braves in the NL East with a 38-53 record.
What Peralta sees up close
Peralta started Monday and gave up one earned run over 4 2/3 innings, scattering six hits and striking out six. Not a bad outing. But the thing he wanted to talk about afterward wasn’t his own stuff. It was Soto’s whole approach to at-bats that look lost for most guys.
Soto finished 1-for-2 with three walks and no strikeouts. That’s a .200 batting average on the surface but a 1.250 OPS for the day. He saw 26 pitches in five plate appearances and swung at exactly one of them outside the zone, according to Statcast. That’s not just patience. That’s a plan.
“Now I understand why,” Peralta said. “I’ve been next to him a lot.”
The Mets have been a mess this season, no way around it. But Soto has been as advertised: a .302 average, 22 homers, a .433 on-base percentage that leads the league. The guys around him keep changing, and he just keeps doing his thing.
Peralta is 28. Soto is 25. That’s the part that gets people. A five-year age gap, and one of them is already a savant at the plate while the other is still figuring out how to keep runs off the board. Soto signed a 15-year, $765 million contract in the offseason. It doesn’t look like an overpay yet.
The Braves still own the division. They’re 52-37 and playing like it. But the Mets took two in Atlanta after getting punched in the mouth twice to open the series. That’s a small thing. In a lost season, small things are what you grab onto.
Peralta grabbed onto something else. He saw the way Soto walked to the plate in the eighth, down a run, with Iglesias pumping 98. He saw the calm. Then he watched the baseball leave the yard.
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