Juan Soto swings momentum to Yankees with HR after injury scare

NEW YORK — For a moment Wednesday night, during the sixth inning of perhaps the Yankees’ best win of the 2024 season, dread filled Yankee Stadium.

That’s what happens when Juan Soto hops halfway down the first-base line and drops to his knees after fouling a pitch off the top of his right foot three weeks before the start of the postseason.

Soto stayed down as a trainer and manager Aaron Boone tended to him in front of a hushed crowd. He tried walking it off, but the pain didn’t seem to subside. He limped around. He was clearly uncomfortable. It did not matter. Soto stayed in the game anyway to continue his at-bat against Kansas City Royals left-hander Cole Ragans, an All-Star who, to that point, was having his way with the Yankees.

With that, the stage was set for Soto’s latest signature moment in pinstripes.

Soto fouled the next pitch off the other way with a checked swing. Ragans followed up with a curveball. This time, Soto was ready, launching the pitch into the seats beyond the right field for a go-ahead two-run home run in the Yankees’ eventual 4-3, 11-inning win.

“It was a lot of pain, but at the end of the day I tried to focus on the at-bat,” Soto said. “Sometimes when you hit yourself like that, you kind of go away a little bit from the at-bat so I tried to just focus, take my time and go in there and make good contact.”

The Yankees needed to overcome another late-inning deficit to beat the playoff-bound Royals and take the three-game series. Jazz Chisholm Jr. delivered the final blow with his first career walk-off hit as the Yankees capitalized on the Baltimore Orioles’ loss to take a 1.5-game lead in the American League East with 16 games remaining.

But the game changed with Soto’s swing — and the subsequent swing of emotions.

“Huge swing by Juan there,” Boone said. “A little rope-a-dope. Got up off the mat and put one in the seats.”

The Yankees’ dugout erupted, Boone included, upon Soto making contact. Soto flipped his bat, released a scream and pumped his chest before starting his ginger trot around the bases. He had been 2-for-his-previous-18 with seven strikeouts. He had just two home runs since Aug. 25. But he said his frustration stemmed from what had happened two pitches earlier.

“You really get mad when you hit yourself,” Soto said. “It’s just the way it goes. Not mad at the pitcher or anything, just mad at myself. But when you come through like that, [you feel] a little relief.”

The blast was Soto’s 39th home run of the season. With it, he reached 100 RBIs for the third time in his career. Ragans, to that point, had thrown 543 curveballs in his major league career without giving up a home run on the pitch, according to ESPN Research. Soto, on a bad foot, put No. 544 in the seats.

“He’s got that theatrical thing down pretty good here,” Boone said.