{"id":664467,"date":"2026-04-05T11:55:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T11:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664467\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T11:55:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T11:55:34","slug":"juan-soto-injury-mets-hold-breath-as-worst-seems-to-be-avoided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664467\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Soto injury: Mets hold breath as worst seems to be avoided"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Juan\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Apr 3, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; New York Mets left fielder Juan Soto (22) reacts on a call strike against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Mets superstar left fielder Juan Soto revealed that he suffered a minor calf strain while running the bases in the first inning of Friday night\u2019s win in San Francisco against the Giants \u2014 a result that appears to have avoided a worst-case scenario at this early junction of the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is not out of the woods yet, though.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Despite being tagged with a day-to-day absence, Soto will be re-evaluated on Tuesday when the team returns to New York for the start of their homestand against the Arizona Diamondbacks to decipher if he will need a stint on the injured list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll give it 48 to 72 hours, see how it continues to progress,\u201d manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cI was surprised when I saw him [Saturday], the way he was moving around, but [calf injuries] are tricky, so we\u2019ll wait and continue to call it day to day until we have to make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mets will understandably proceed with caution, even if that means putting a retroactive date to Friday on an IL stint to shorten, say, a 10-day absence.\u00a0This is somewhat unknown territory for Soto, who has played in 150 or more games in every full MLB season since 2019.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old is off to a strong start in the second year of his 15-year blockbuster contract. He had recorded a hit in each of his first eight games of the season, slashing<\/a> .355\/.412\/.516 (.928 OPS) with one home run and five RBI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Should he be sidelined for an extended portion of time, the Mets could either roll with Tyrone Taylor \u2014 known more for his glove than his bat \u2014 as a fill-in option. Mendoza could also move rookie right fielder Carson Benge to left and start Brett Baty in right, meaning Mark Vientos would get full-time looks at either first base or designated hitter.<\/p>\n

The Mets reunited with veteran outfielder Tommy Pham on a minor-league deal last week to bolster the depth chart after Mike Tauchman\u2019s strong spring was interrupted by a torn meniscus.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

For more on Juan Soto and the Mets, visit AMNY.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 3, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; New York Mets left fielder Juan Soto (22) reacts on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,134,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-664467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-juan-soto","10":"tag-mets","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkmets","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116351976135176962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}