Juan Soto, Nolan McLean and Andy Green talk strong win for Mets over Astros
Juan Soto talked about his first game back in the lineup as he returned from injury, Nolan McLean discussed his strong seven innings, and interim manager Andy Green spoke about more Jared Young heroics at the plate as the Mets beat the Astros on Saturday, 6-2.
Video Transcript
Andy, we, we obviously know that Soto's a different cat, but what does he do so well, either in his work, his preparation, that allows him to step right in and, you know, impact the game in that way?
I mean, he's, we've said it plenty of times, he's right up there with the absolute best hitters on the planet.
You get, you get the privilege to see two of them on the same field right now.
It's, it's really special.
So it's unsurprising that, like, he finds his timing quicker than the rest of us do who play baseball.
It's unsurprising that he can take at-bats, in a non-competitive game, and get his timing back and square baseballs up.
And, I- when you watch him take those at-bats, it's the same level of focus that he takes into the game.
So, like, he, he gets reps, doesn't slack off at all.
So, great to have him back in the lineup.
Huge RBI for him right there and, that's fun win for the group.
We have asked you so often recently about Jared Young, but a career-high three RBIs tonight.
Those first two, base hits for him on 0-2 pitches.
Specifically on, on a, in a count like that, what is it about his approach, either in this game or just generally overall, that, that you think allows him to have that success?
Yeah, he stays within himself.
He doesn't, doesn't ever try to do too much.
He understands, like, how he's going to be attacked.
He's got weaknesses that can't always get it to the spot.
He doesn't panic about his weakness.
I think a lot of hitters, like, become aware of how pitchers are attacking them, get hyper-focused on that.
Pitcher still has to execute.
Every hitter in the game has some relative weakness.
So for him, he does a nice job of not, not worrying about that.
And as soon as a pitcher makes a mistake, he puts it into play and good things happen and, it's been just really good at-bats consistently from him.
Andy, it was Ju- just talking about, you know, throwing a lot of fastballs in response to their aggressiveness and how much of that was just game plan going into the game versus what you were seeing out there?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that was necessarily game plan.
I think, I mean, there's a few guys who are aggressive on their team scouting report-wise.
So I didn't really expect them all to come out so aggressive.
So game plan-wise is a little bit different, but once I saw how aggressive they were, it was just trying to play the two fastballs off of each other and get some weak contact.
How does that feel for you when you're able to sort of go through a lineup and, you know, rely heavily on those fastballs versus some of the breaking stuff we've seen from, more from you in the past?
Yeah, I mean, it's great.
I mean, anytime you can go deeper into games and not have to use as many pitches, it's good.
Obviously, like, striking guys out is fun, but so is, so is going seven innings, so.
Cristian, how did it feel just to be back and be out there?
Feels good, you know?
Feels to be back, it's just a great feeling, you know, to be part of the team, part of the game.
You know, try to help the team as, as much as you can out there.
It's, it's feels really cool.
How'd you feel physically and at the plate with your timing?
Feel great.
Feel great.
I feel like we work a lot in my timing through those days, down, when I was down.
So definitely I tried to stay as, as locked in as possible and feel great right now.
Juan, when was today the right day for you?
I mean, we went through all the testers and everything, and we kinda, like, loaded really well and see how it react, and react really well, so I think this is the right, right time, right per- perfect time to come back.
