Mets fans' positive approach to Juan Soto's early-season struggles is right approach
Mets’ Juan Soto returns to the dugout after striking out swinging against the St. Louis Cardinals during the third inning of an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Thursday, April 17, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Francisco Lindor — October hero, MVP runner-up, de facto Mets captain — was booed at Citi Field nine games into his Flushing residency.
The very same guy who upped the voltage on Friday night in the Mets’ 5-4 comeback victory over the Cardinals by swatting a walk-off home run, No. 250 for his career, only the sixth shortstop to reach that total.
Seeing what Lindor has developed into for these Mets was precisely the vision of owner Steve Cohen, who gave him a 10-year, $341 million contract extension three months after obtaining him in a trade with Cleveland.
But the evolution from potential franchise cornerstone to the actual thing took time. It involved growing pains. And in New York, unlike every other market with the exception of maybe Philadelphia and Boston, that involves a baptism of fire known as being booed by your own fans.
Darryl Strawberry, whose No. 18 was placed in the Citi Field rafters last June, was booed frequently at Shea Stadium as a highly touted 21-year-old rookie and throughout his Mets career, for a variety of transgressions, despite being one of the most entertaining and productive sluggers in the franchise’s history. Strawberry and Gary Carter were the hammers behind the 1986 World Series title, and Strawberry followed that up with back-to-back 39-homer and 100-plus-RBI seasons.
Still, the booing persisted. And while Strawberry returns to unconditional cheers now, as he did on Thursday at Citi Field, he remembers what it was like to play through the jeers from his own fans (before becoming a visiting villain in Dodger blue).
“When you experience that, either you’re going to come out of it better or you’re going to let it get to you,” Strawberry told Newsday. “You got the spotlight on you. You’re our guy. And that’s what it was for me. They looked at me like, ‘You’re our rightfielder, you’re the guy that’s supposed to hit 30 homers, you’re supposed to drive in 100 runs,’ and that’s real. They’re not wrong about that.”
New York Mets’ Francisco Lindor is doused with water after his walk-off home run to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-4 in an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Friday, April 18, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The topic of booing as it relates to underperforming star players tends to be an annual discourse, both in Queens and the Bronx. Stunningly, it seems to happen most to Aaron Judge, whose only crime is switching from Superman to Clark Kent come October. But this past week, the storm clouds were gathering over Juan Soto, whose modest start to the season was well below the expectations for a $765 million hitting savant.
That raised the question: How soon is too soon for fans to openly display their dissatisfaction?
Soto came awfully close to finding out during Thursday night’s 0-for-3 performance, which included hitting into his fifth double play, tied for most in the majors. That dropped him to .221 with a .361 on-base percentage and .773 OPS, significantly below his career marks.
Evidently, the fans weren’t ready to pull the trigger only 19 games in (and a mere seven at home). Both the double-play grounder and strikeout produced what we’d describe as frustrated groans — well short of the full-fledged booing we heard for Lindor in the past, and certainly Judge’s unfair razzing in the Bronx.
We’ve heard dozens of Mets and Yankees get booed in their home ballparks, and Soto’s treatment Thursday didn’t meet that minimum standard. Those disgruntled rumblings didn’t register on the boo meter, as it were.
Afterward, Soto didn’t attach any special significance to his cool April, which wasn’t all that out of line with his previous seasons, aside from his explosive start for the Yankees a year ago. He believed the transition from one side of New York to the other was going well. As for his production, in his view, that’s just baseball.
“It’s always different when you come to a new team,” Soto told Newsday. “It takes time to learn their way, how to fit in pretty well. But it’s just part of the game. I don’t think that’s part of the struggle at all. I feel like it’s just my swing and everything has just been a little off for the past couple of weeks. I just got to get back on track.”
The next night, Soto seemed on his way, both at the plate and in the stands at Citi Field. When he batted in the fifth inning Friday night with the Mets trailing 1-0 and a runner at third, many of the 39,627 fans provided encouragement with a standing ovation. Soto then smacked the tying single into rightfield, only his second hit (2-for-16) with runners in scoring position this season.
“The crowd is embracing Soto, and I love that they’re embracing him because he’s gonna be with us for a very long time,” Lindor said Friday night. “He’s a fantastic teammate and a fantastic player. So I know at any point, he’s gonna make something happen. I’m happy that the fans are embracing him and showing him love because he deserves it.”
Soto, unlike Judge, never heard boos in the Bronx because he started fast and didn’t slow down, finishing with a career-best 41 homers and a .989 OPS that helped him earn a third-place finish in the American League MVP voting. Also, the Yankees’ fan base desperately wanted the pending free agent to return, so he was showered with unconditional love — an extremely rare case for any New York athlete in any sport.
Maybe Friday’s preemptive applause for Soto represented an attitude shift out at Citi Field, where it’s possible that fans finally may have realized the error of their ways. During the darker years in Flushing, it wasn’t all that unusual for Mets to complain that they felt it was harder to play at home because of the tension created by frustrated fans who were anxious to vent that vitriol at their own team.
With the Mets coming off last year’s thrilling October romp and, of course, swiping Soto from the Yankees, the Flushing vibe certainly is more positive now. That booing of Lindor only weeks into his Mets career seems like a lifetime ago, and Citi Field doesn’t appear anxious to harass Soto in the same knee-jerk fashion. Possibly not at all, as the standing ovation was reminiscent of the one given to a slumping Lindor at this time a year ago.
“That’s who we are, and that’s who the Mets fans are,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Friday night. “They’re always going to be behind their players. We feel it and the other teams feel it. And I’m pretty sure Juan felt it, and it was good for him to come through. He’s a really good player, and it was good to see.
“We’ve seen it here with other players, especially when they’re struggling. You can feel that reaction from the fans, in this case with a standing ovation. We saw that last year with Lindor, and he took off after that. I’m not saying that’s gonna be the case all the time, but it’s good to have that type of support.”
Last season, Lindor was hitting .098 (5-for-51) through the Mets’ first dozen games when the home fans followed Cohen’s endorsement (from an X posting) and tried a more optimistic approach with their star shortstop. From there, Lindor batted .273 with an .842 OPS for the rest of April, then hit .291 with 28 homers, 80 RBIs and an .892 OPS in the season’s next 123 games (May 1-Sept. 30).
Ultimately, Lindor’s MVP-caliber talent kicked in, just as we’d expect with Soto. But there’s something to be said for the power of positivity, too.
“It’s a long-term situation,” Strawberry said. “You got to be married to this situation. And in the marriage, you don’t just walk away.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
