Juan Soto Wins NL Player of the Month

Juan Soto has been named the National League Player of the Month for June. The 26-year-old batted a scalding .322/.474/.722 with 11 homers and 20 RBIs while drawing 25 walks against 20 strikeouts and scoring 25 runs in 116 plate appearances. Soto became the first Met to record 25 hits and 25 walks in a calendar month since David Wright in August of 2007. He also had two multi-homer games in the month, giving him 27 for his career, passing Jimmie Foxx for the most for any player before turning 27.

Soto began play on June 1 with just nine homers and a .770 OPS – still above-average numbers, but far from what the Mets expected when they gave him the largest contract in professional sports history. By the end of the month, Soto had raised his OPS to an even .900, and his slugging percentage skyrocketed from .413 to .507. The biggest concern with Soto over the first two months of the season was his ground-ball rate, but that number plummeted from 57% in April to 46.8% in May and then down to 37.1% in June. Soto’s fly ball rate also increased from 29.9% in May to 31.4% in June. His average exit velocity also jumped from 93.7 miles per hour to an eye-popping 96.1.

Soto is the second Met to win Player of the Month this year, joining Peter Alonso, who won the honors in April. This is just the second time the Mets have had Player of the Month winners in a year, with the other being when Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez each won in 1985.

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