Juan Soto ends home run drought with mammoth blast as Mets rout Twins to stay hot
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Try it freeMINNEAPOLIS — Juan Soto has spent most of his first three weeks with the Mets waiting for pitchers to attack him.
Stuck on one homer and four RBIs as Monday’s play began — but owning a .409 on-base percentage — the Mets star told The Post he hasn’t been pitched the same as last season, when he had Aaron Judge hitting behind him with the Yankees.
“It’s definitely different,” Soto said before the Mets beat the Twins 5-1 at Target Field. “I had the best hitter in baseball hitting behind me. I was getting more attacked and more pitches in the strike zone, less intentional walks and things like that. I was pitched differently last year.”
On this night, after the Mets had built a 3-1 lead in the seventh inning, Soto got a pitch to hit, driving a Jorge Alcala changeup deep over the fence in right-center to end his drought of 13 games without a homer.
Mostly, opposing pitchers have been content to take their chances with Pete Alonso, who has clearly benefited from Soto’s presence in the lineup. Alonso reached base four times — with two singles and two walks — and owns a 1.137 OPS.
“I would say I am getting a decent amount of strikes, but there’s some specific situations where pitchers don’t attack,” Soto said.
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But Soto’s success as a hitter is predicated upon plate discipline, and he isn’t about to stray from that approach.
“I feel like I am trying to be the same: do damage when I can and whenever they want to attack me I take my chances and when they don’t I just take my walk,” Soto said. “I am not trying to be selfish or anything and try to hit homers every time. I am just trying to take my pitches and take my swings whenever I can and when they don’t want to, I pass the baton to my teammates.”
Soto’s blast highlighted the offensive attack while Clay Holmes survived a stiff challenge in the fifth inning before Huascar Brazobán, Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek handled the rest in a third Mets victory in four games.
Facing the top of the lineup for the third time, after loading the bases to begin the inning, Holmes could have easily imploded.
Instead, he minimized the damage by allowing one run, got three straight outs and kept the Mets in position for the win.
Christian Vázquez’s sacrifice fly against Holmes accounted for the Twins’ only run. Trevor Larnach and Brooks Lee each walked in the inning and Ty France was hit by a pitch.
But after a visit from pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, the right-hander — who also threw a wild pitch before the walk to Lee — got three straight outs.
“I had good innings before that and ran into trouble there and it’s definitely frustrating,” Holmes said. “But you have got to switch the mode from ‘I allowed the bases to be loaded,’ to ‘now I have got to do some damage control.’ Just doing damage control and stopping their momentum was huge.”
Holmes struck out eight and walked two with two hits allowed over five innings in which he threw 90 pitches.
“He was pretty nasty today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He was using all of his pitches, mixing it well.”
Alonso’s two-out RBI single in the third brought in the game’s first run. Luisangel Acu?a walked leading off the inning against Joe Ryan and after Francisco Lindor and Soto were retired, Alonso delivered for his 19th RBI of the season.
Holmes surrendered a two-out triple to Matt Wallner in the fourth but protected the Mets’ 1-0 lead by retiring Carlos Correa to end the inning.
The Mets scored twice in the sixth to go ahead 3-1.
Mark Vientos delivered an RBI double before pitcher Justin Topa threw away Luis Torrens’ comebacker, allowing Vientos to score.
Alonso’s leadoff single started the rally.
Soto’s two-run blast in the seventh, after Acu?a’s leadoff single, concluded the Mets’ scoring.
