The stage was set for outfielder Juan Soto to be a hero in his official New York Mets debut when he represented the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth inning of Thursday’s Opening Day game at the Houston Astros.
Instead, Astros closer Josh Hader won the battle when he got Soto to swing and miss at a 3-2 pitch out of the strike zone to secure the 3-1 victory for the hosts.
Both addressed the at-bat following the contest.
“I’m seeing it really well,” Soto said about initially working Hader to a 3-0 count, Tim Britton of The Athletic and Andy Martino of SNY shared. “His best pitch is his fastball, so I was sitting on the fastball.”
As one unnamed American League executive recently told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, Soto “knows the strike zone as well as anyone” in the league. That said, Hader seemed to realize that the All-Star who put pen to paper on a 15-year, $765M contract this past offseason wasn’t banking on the fact that he could get a slider low and away with slugger Pete Alonso on deck.
“I think that’s why I was able to get him to swing at that slider, just because of the back and forth that we had in crunch time like that, he’s always gone to fastball,” Hader explained. “Maybe he was just sitting dead red, and he was selling out.”
Of course, that one at-bat isn’t why the Mets began Friday at 0-1 on the season. They went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and squandered opportunities to produce runs in the first inning and when they had the bases loaded in the eighth. One couldn’t have blamed Soto for feeling in the top of the ninth that he had to tie things up with a swing of the bat, but he insisted he was willing to reach first base on a walk for the third time on Thursday.
“We all want to do something in a big spot,” Soto added, per Abbey Mastracco of the New York Daily News. “You know, we’re all trying to get the knock and trying to bring the runs in to try to help the team either way. But for me, I don’t mind taking a walk right there. It’s Pete behind me, and he’s a really good power hitter. So I think we have a better chance right there.”
Soto acknowledged that Hader simply threw “a pretty good pitch” when he needed to. He could get an opportunity to redeem himself when the Mets face the Astros in Houston on Friday at 8:10 p.m. ET.
