The ‘genius’ we used to know is back. It is safe to say that it has entered the original orbit.
This is the story of Juan Soto of the San Diego Padres. As Juan Soto came back to life, San Diego started to rise as well.
In the home game against the Cincinnati Reds held at Petco Park on the 4th (Korean time), Soto went 1-for-2 with 1 hit, 3 RBIs and 3 walks in a 7-1 victory.
Soto suffered severe sluggishness at the beginning of the season and was beaten by the local media. In a survey of club officials recently released by MLB.com, he was voted the second most disappointing player of the season. Six of the 18 people who participated in the vote pointed to Houston Astros Jose Abreu and five to Soto.
It seems that the survey was conducted on the last two days. It is said that his performance on this day was not reflected.
Soto, 토토사이트 who played as the third left fielder, got a walk with 1 out and 1 base in the bottom of the 1st inning. He singled out opposing starter Luis Sessa’s low changeup on the 5th pitch with a ball on 3B1S. He went out as the leadoff batter in the third inning and got a straight walk. In the fifth, he picked off left-hander Alex Young’s outside curveball on the sixth pitch on a full count. He walked out in the first three at-bats.
Then, in the 6th inning, leading 4-1, he hit the most exciting 3-run double this season. Soto, who entered the 4th at-bat with 2 out and 1 bases loaded, pulled the slider on the inside of his first pitch of 83 mph against rookie right-hander Casey Regumina, landed on the right side of the right fielder, and hit the fence with a double that brought all three players in. In an instant, the score was 7-1. It was a moment when San Diego solidified its winning streak.
In the 8th inning, he had a tenacious match with Ian Jibo to a full count, but on the 9th he pulled a 95 mph body fastball and withdrew with a floating ball to right field.
Soto had a batting average of 0.178 on the 27th of last month when he played 26 games of the season. His Mendoza line was also at a disastrous level far below. Except for the very early part of the season, Soto’s batting average has never been this low. By then he had gone hitless in 16 games.
An analysis came out that the pitch clock was the cause of Soto’s sluggishness. He says he doesn’t have enough time to prepare to hit because he has to get to the plate quickly from the waiting plate. Soto once complained about the actual pitch clock. But he wasn’t an excuse to be the team’s leading hitter. Not all hitters struggled like Soto did.
But Soto started to get the hang of it, going 1-for-3 in an April 28 road game against the Chicago Cubs. He took a day off, and on April 30 against San Francisco, he hit a solo home run to left-center to restore his slugging power. He hit the 94.3 mph sinker low in the middle of opposing right-hander Jacob Jounis in a two-ball. He had a large arch with a launch angle of 18 degrees, exit velocity of 113.3 mph, and distance of 448 feet (136.6 m). In the field, it is analyzed that sluggish left-handed batters find sense when they hit a home run in the middle left course.
Soto raised his batting average to .200 by hitting multi-hits in three consecutive games, from the next day against San Francisco to the game against Cincinnati on the 3rd.
Until this day, Soto is marking the last 6 consecutive hits and 5 consecutive RBIs. During this period, he went 9-for-20 (0.450), with one home run, eight RBIs, and nine walks. As befits his style of choosing his balls carefully, his season 31 walks are number one overall. Thanks to this, the on-base percentage (0.397) is close to 40%.