Padres Star Fixed Biggest Swinging Issue & Saw Best Results of 2023
Juan Soto heard all of the slander on his name the first month of the 2023 season, he really did. And I am not here to say that he was not deserving of it because the general stigma around the Padres before the season was that they had their eyes on him as their next extension candidate.
The two biggest names on their pitching staff were locked up, Manny Machado got the $300 million deal that he was looking for and even said himself that he hoped Soto would receive his soon. However, the 24-year-old slugger continued his initial struggles from last season and batted just .217 in the month of April as the Friars got off to a horrible start.
Everybody was wondering what happened to the heavy hitter that so many baseball fans fell in love with back in Washington. Experts began running back to his old film and recognized that he had strayed away from using the entire field in his at-bats and ran to Twitter to share their findings... as if Soto hadn't already been practicing every day to find that groove again.
He was bound to go back to normal eventually.
A Smooth 5-5
Fast forward to today and Soto was able to put together one of the best outings of his career against the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, recording five hits for the first time ever.
The most evident factor abut his performance in their 10-3 win was that he used the entire field in every single of his hits and continued building off of a strong May that saw him bat .333 with 15 RBI's.
Soto was nothing smiles in his postgame interview and addressed that he fixed his biggest issue as did the rest of their batters.
“We’ve been swinging the bat well,” Soto said. “I think everyone is working on the same thing — trying to get the ball and get the singles to the opposite field and stop trying to pull the ball and try to get big.”
(Via The San Diego-Union Tribune)
Let's see if he can continue this against the Colorado Rockies!
