Soto navigates uncharted waters amidst jeers
Expectations with the arrival of Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres have not been met and the reality is that the Dominican is going through one of the worst stretches of his young career.
Since his arrival with the team during the trade deadline of the current MLB season, Juan Soto is hitting just .232 with a .771 OPS, three home runs, six RBI, 20 runs scored, 26 walks and 16 strikeouts in 29 games with the team. He has been plagued by nagging injuries that have limited his number of games played and, generally speaking, he has not played at the expected level.
Clearly, this has led to frustration among San Diego Padres fans, who have been hoping for a deep trip to the postseason for years, and have begun to show the effects of that frustration.
Soto, who despite being a young player in age, has an enviable maturity as a human being, admitted that he has heard the boos from Padres fans when he stops to bat or when he misses his turns and notes that he understands how they feel, as there is no person more demanding of himself than he is.
“I know they’re almost as frustrated as I am. So I understand what they do. They’re fanatical. They want them to succeed. Now, sometimes it’s not going to happen all the time, but we have to take it like a champion and move on. They want the team to win. I bet they don’t want to pay a ticket to come see the team lose. So I’m telling you they probably feel a little bad right now,” Soto told Kevin Acee of the San Diego Tribune.
Because of their excellent performance over the years, this is a completely new situation for “La Fiera.” It’s one thing to hear boos from fans of opposing teams, that’s normal, but when it comes to dealing with his own fans, these are uncharted waters for the Dominican.
“The challenge is just going from a team that doesn’t care about anything because they know they’re not going anywhere to a team that has a great chance of winning the World Series. That changes everything from one day to the next,” concluded Soto about the challenge he is facing for the first time in his career.
