PINSTRIPES FIT SOTO VERY WELL
New slugger goes deep in Yankee spring debut
TAMPA — Juan Soto didn’t disappoint while playing in pinstripes for the first time on Sunday, smoking a threerun homer in the Yankees’ spring home opener.
The 110.1-mph, 428-foot, opposite-field blast off Blue
Jays righty Trevor Richards pelted the scoreboard at George M. Steinbrenner Field, giving the Yankees a 7-1 lead in what became a 12-6 win. After giving the ball a little look, Soto skipped toward home plate as the crowd cheered for the Yankees’ new superstar, who joined the team in an offseason trade with the Padres.
“High pitches, that’s what I’m always looking for, and more against a guy like that,” said Soto, who clobbered a heater above the zone. “He’s a guy who likes to throw a lot of changeups and makes you chase. So my plan was looking for something high. He missed a little higher than I thought, but I made a great swing to get to it.”
Added Aaron Boone: “Wow. I mean, you just don’t see balls hit like that to the biggest part of the park, and he and everyone knows off the bat that that’s not coming back. It’s through the scoreboard.”
Soto, who also walked, batted second and played right on Sunday. He hit directly in front of Aaron Judge, who played center.
The Yankee captain went 2-for-2 with a single, a double and an RBI.
“I’m impressed by the first day, that’s for sure,” Judge said of Soto.
While Judge has taken 1,971 regular-season at-bats in the two-hole — far more than any other spot — he has been asking Boone to hit third for years. The chance to bat behind an on-base machine and pure hitter like Soto only intensified that desire.
“It might be a little old school thinking on my part,” Judge said Feb. 20, “but some of the guys I watched growing up, the best hitters were hitting third and the run producers were three and four. But I don’t know. I don’t know why it means so much to me. I just want to find a way to help the team any way I can. If that’s me hitting third, it’s me hitting third.”
While Soto hasn’t always enjoyed hitting second, he reiterated that he doesn’t mind occupying that spot with Judge behind him.
“He’s great,” Soto said Sunday. “I mean, any part of this lineup that you hit, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be fun. We have so many good players that I think we’re gonna cover everything that we need to. I think it’s gonna be really fun.”
Judge has said that he will be “happy anywhere Soto hits,” and Boone has said that he considers the two “interchangeable” in the two and three spots. However, the manager has noted that balance and whoever is leading off could affect where Soto and Judge hit.
Soto swings lefty, while Judge hits righty. With the right-handed Bowden Francis starting for Toronto, Boone also decided to put left fielder Alex Verdugo, another lefty swinger making his spring Yankees debut, in the leadoff spot. He doubled in his first at-bat, but Boone has also made it known that he likes the idea of DJ LeMahieu being the Yankees’ primary leadoff man.
“Dugie, DJ, Soto, whoever’s hitting in front of me, those guys put the ball in play and they get on,” Judge said Sunday. “They get in scoring position. It makes my job easy. Especially Soto, a guy that’s going to walk. He’s going to hit balls off the scoreboard. He’s just going to make it tough. When you just stack up good at-bat after good at-bat after good at-bat like that, you wear down the starting pitchers. You wear down guys in the bullpen. So we’re all pretty excited about that.”
The skipper will play around with the top of his lineup but added, “I definitely like Juan-Aaron in that two-three. But we’ll see how it shakes out.”
Anthony Rizzo, another lefty, followed Judge in his first game since he was shut down with post-concussion syndrome last year. The first baseman picked up a double and an RBI groundout. Second baseman Gleyber Torres, a righty, hit after Rizzo and collected two RBI.
While several Yankees contributed to the exhibition onslaught, all eyes were on Soto. The 25-year-old made a strong first impression on the fans, and vice versa.
“You want to get that feeling of the Yankee fans,” Soto said. “You always hear about them. You get to a point where you’ll be like, ‘OK, I want to feel about them. I want to see how it’s going to feel to have them on my back cheering for me instead of booing me.’ So I think it’s been pretty good.”
Soto and Judge have also made strong first impressions on each other. In addition to forming a Bash Brothers-type tandem, the two have been getting along, often laughing as they try to outdo the other during batting practice.
“He’s a New York Yankee,” Judge said. “His first year here, I want to make it a good one. I want this to be his best year. If he’s feeling right and he’s doing his thing, that’s only going to take us one step closer to a World Series. So whatever I can do to get Juan feeling like Juan, I’m gonna try to do it.”
Added Soto, an impending free agent: “He’s been good. I mean, he’s even better than what I expected. I’ve known he was a great guy, but I didn’t know he was that good.”
With the Yankees’ top two sluggers clicking early on, it’s easy to imagine this lineup drastically outperforming last year’s, whatever the order may look like.
Judge didn’t want to get too carried away over one spring training game, but he agrees that there’s potential. He’s excited for what’s to come.
“It’s the first day. I don’t want to jump too far ahead. But you could ask anybody in that lineup. We were all pretty excited,” Judge said, noting that the Yankees were missing regulars like LeMahieu and Anthony Volpe on Sunday. “We all felt like little kids again.”