NEW YORK — On his first day back from the injured list, and with the Mets on a 12-game losing streak, Juan Soto received attention for something that he said on Wednesday.
Or, rather, for what he didn’t say.
When asked if he was in contact with teammates during the skid with the idea of lifting their spirits, Soto said, “No. Not at all.”
Soto added, “They’ve been on the road most of the time. So I haven’t talked to them.”
Juan Soto said he hasn’t been talking to his Mets teammates during the losing streak.
“They’ve been on the road most of the time so I haven’t talked to them” pic.twitter.com/W9SmiuEdd5
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 22, 2026
Given how much scrutiny the Mets’ clubhouse received after last season, Soto’s words are generating a ton of attention. The knee-jerk reaction could be, “How could he not be in contact with them?!”
But here’s some important context via a veteran Mets player: “That approach is completely normal.”
Really.
The Athletic spoke with three Mets veteran players and granted them anonymity in exchange for candor. They all agreed: completely normal.
As the veteran players explained, when a player goes on the IL in baseball, he is essentially out of sight, out of mind. The injured player is “not going through the moment,” as one of the veterans put it. Therefore, they maintain a distance.
In some instances, an especially vocal leader will reach out to the group via text. That’s not the standard operating procedure, though.
“They’re going through it, and you’re not there,” another veteran said. “He was here every day and on the top step when we were home. On the road, he’s taking care of business. What’s he going to say in a text message, anyway? What it comes down to is, we’ve needed to do our jobs, and we haven’t.”
The other thing to keep in mind is that Soto does not care about optics. Clearly, he is going to say what’s on his mind without much regard for how a message comes across. He has been that way since the Mets made him the highest-paid player in the sport. That’s unlikely to change.
What Soto cares about changing, he said, is the Mets’ worst losing streak since 2002. Without him for 15 games, the Mets scored just 40 runs. He was in the lineup Wednesday, batting second and at designated hitter. Soto is scheduled to play left field on Thursday.
For the Mets, it was a welcome sight, even if his words created the wrong kind of attention.
“If it’s getting a lot of attention,” one Mets player said, “then that’s wrong and way overblown.”
