This past summer, on one of Juan Soto’s last nights with the Washington Nationals, the loud music between innings kept him from relaying a message to someone in the crowd. So before the top of the second, Soto scribbled a note on a baseball and tossed it to Brian Campbell, who sat in the first row behind Soto in right field.
The playoffs offer Juan Soto a chance to plant roots with the Padres
The creative exchange had nothing to do with the looming trade deadline. Soto lived with Campbell and his family during a three-week stretch with the low Class A Hagerstown Suns in 2018, when Soto was blazing a fast track to the majors. He wanted Campbell to know Telmito Agustin, a former Nationals minor leaguer, was watching the game from behind home plate. And that was it.
Campbell laughed while telling the story, noting how when Soto’s future hung in the balance in late July — when his name trended around even the lightest rumor — the 23-year-old was focused on connecting Campbell and Agustin at Nationals Park. Santo Domingo is home for Soto, who spends every winter in the Dominican Republic, conditioning his legs by running wind sprints on the beach. But Washington was and always will be his first baseball home, something that’s hard to duplicate elsewhere.
Winning more playoff games with the Padres could help. After beating the Dodgers on Wednesday, Soto and the Padres return to Petco Park tied 1-1 in the best-of-five National League Division Series, with Games 3 and 4 scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Back in early September, when Soto was stuck in a slump, Padres fans booed after his final two at-bats of an 0-for-4 day. To his point of the postseason, Soto is 5 for 20 with two walks and no extra-base hits.
“Before he left, I told him: ‘This is going to be weird. The Nationals are all you’ve ever known, so you’re going to have to adjust and get comfortable with a lot of new people,’ ” Nationals Manager Dave Martinez said in August. “But at the same time, my message was that everyone will love you and adapt to you if you perform. That’s what it comes down to. He is an excellent baseball player and has a chance to leave his mark there.”
Three Octobers ago, Soto did that with one massive hit after another. He sealed a wild-card victory over the Milwaukee Brewers with the single that skipped past Trent Grisham and brought in three runs. He teamed with Anthony Rendon to crush back-to-back homers off Clayton Kershaw in Game 5 of the NLDS. Then he smacked three home runs in the World Series, taking Gerrit Cole to the train tracks at Minute Maid Park and Justin Verlander to the upper deck in right.
If the postseason appealed to him then, it still does now.
“This is the big stage,” Soto told the San Diego Union-Tribune before the playoffs. “Everybody wants the big stage. I’m a guy that I want to be there. I want to have the bat in the moment. So even if I fail, or not, I want to be there. I want to be the guy up there.”
Each of those past moments further bonded Soto to the Nationals organization. Title runs tend to do that. So when he was traded on Aug. 2, he wasn’t just leaving Martinez, his coaches and teammates behind. There were also clubhouse attendants, the medical staff, security guards and so on. There was familiarity built over years and years.
“I like to be where I know everyone,” Soto said in a quiet moment by his locker in late June, just before he turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer that could have kept him in D.C. for the rest of his career. “I feel like the Nationals are my family now.”
In the lead-up to the deadline, two front office members said Soto often asked about the Nationals’ progress in the minor leagues. On one hand, that illustrated Soto’s interest in Washington’s prospects and long-term plan. But on the other, it was a reminder that many of Soto’s friends and peers are still hacking it below the majors.
Soto signed with the club as an international free agent in 2015. Elvis Alvarado, another player in that class — and another outfielder from the Dominican — was traded by Washington to the Seattle Mariners before the World Series win and topped out at Class AA in 2022. On multiple occasions since Soto debuted, Campbell drove to Nationals Park and filled his car with gear from Soto, who would stuff backpacks full of batting gloves and shirts.
Soto wanted to make sure his guys had what they needed in Harrisburg and Fredericksburg. They were the guys he grew up with at the Nationals’ academy in the Dominican Republic. They were the guys he drove to and from games in a big van in Hagerstown. They were his roots, and he never forgot it.
This weekend offers a chance to grow some out West.
“Knowing Juan, he will build these relationships again in San Diego,” Campbell said after the trade. “But it takes time.”
Source: WP
