Mets surge into best record in baseball as Juan Soto finally heats up

The New York Mets notched their fifth consecutive win on Wednesday, defeating the Washington Nationals by a 5-0 final (box score) behind a complete-game shutout from left-handed starter David Peterson. That victory (their eighth in 10 games to begin June), plus a Detroit Tigers loss, means the Mets now have the best record in the majors at 44-24.

It’s fair to write that the Mets have been on a heater for longer than the past two weeks. Over the last 30 days, New York has given at least 50 plate appearances to 10 players. Of those 10 players, six have provided at least league-average offense, and three have hit at 50% or better than league-average levels. That includes first baseman Pete Alonso, who continues to close in on the franchise’s home-run record, but it also includes Juan Soto.

Soto, 26, has hit .253/.412/.471 over what amounts to a month of action. He’s homered five times during that span and has walked more than he’s struck out. His numbers over the past two weeks are even better, and his seasonal wRC+ has improved to 142. If Soto continues his tear, his wRC+ will in short order eclipse the marks he put up in 2018, 2019, and 2022 — or, roughly, half his previous big-league seasons. In June alone, he’s hitting .382/.553/.794 with home runs in his last two games.

While Soto’s early season struggles were always overstated (his .368 April on-base percentage would rank 29th in the majors) it’s perhaps not a surprise that his recent ascension has coincided with a rising launch angle that has unlocked more slugging capacity. Take a look at some of Soto’s ball-tracking metrics broken down by month:

Mar/Apr.

93.4 mph

6 degrees

18.5%

May

93.7 mph

7.8 degrees

29.9%

Jun.

96.7 mph

17.6 degrees

33.3%

Although Soto is a prolific home-run hitter (he’s averaged 35 for every 162 games in his career), he doesn’t have the kind of steep, uppercutting swing path that’s usually associated with sluggers. His is flatter, and his barrel is often angled at the opposite field at contact. Last season was just the second time in his career that he’s posted an average launch angle above 10 degrees. (For reference, Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts has never posted a full-season launch angle below 12 degrees in his big-league career.)

The rub is that Soto’s best quality of contact tends to come on steeper trajectories (his average launch angle on hard-hit balls since 2020 is 13.3 degrees), meaning that when he’s out of tune he’s likely hitting the ball on a flatter plane that doesn’t allow him to maximize his slugging capacity. Soto has gone through similar stretches before and he’ll almost certainly go through them again in the future.

This particular spiral just so happened to align with the start date of the richest contract in baseball history: the 15-year, $765 million pact he signed in December. But enough about the dollars and the cents. Right now, the numbers that matter to the Mets are in the standings and on the stat sheets. And they’re quite good.

Kodai Senga will take the mound for the Mets Thursday afternoon (-105, over/under 8 runs, per BetMGM) in the final game of a three-game set against the Nationals as New York aims for a sweep.

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