Juan Soto made his big league debut with the Washington Nationals on May 20th, 2018. He’s had 24 hits, five home runs, and 12 RBI in 89 plate appearances since then. Including a two-home run game against the Yankees to help boost the Nationals over one of the other best teams in the league.
Juan Soto hit his first major league home run 5 days ‘before’ his first major league game
The talented young rookie is also a time traveler.
Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
On Monday night, June 18th, 2018, Juan Soto had his first career hit (a two-run homer), also against the Yankees. But that hit will be logged as happening on May 15th.
Thanks to a trick in the schedule, Soto is a time traveler. The Yankees and Nationals are in the midst of a double header thanks to a suspended game from May 15th and a postponed game from May 16th. April and May were so fun with all that weather, weren’t they?
He’s not the first to do it — the same thing happened to Andrew Susac in 2014 — but it’s a fun twist in baseball’s usual orderly ways. But Juan Soto just had his first major league hit before his actual debut. Time travel gets you in the Hall of Fame right away, right?
There are other weird roster tidbits about this game — Howie Kendrick, for example, is out for the season but was in the lineup back in May, and Tyler Austin is back in the minors — but Soto is the most fun. With his hit in the bottom of the sixth during the resumed game, his first career hit is officially in the books as coming before he made his official major league debut.
He came into the game for Matt Adams, who was originally playing left field but is currently dealing with a hand injury suffered over the weekend. And he then blasted a go-ahead two-run home run over the fence.
Even better, Soto was now technically in two places at the same time according to the official baseball record. On May 15th, he was going 3-for-4 with Double A Harrisburg, notching an RBI and a strikeout in a game against the Bowie Baysox.
Baseball is great.
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