San Diego Padres star Juan Soto exited yesterday's game after being hit in the shoulder by Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Tommy Henry. The incident occurred in the bottom of the third during an encounter between the Padres and the D'backs. He was diagnosed with a right shoulder contusion.
"Juan Soto exited the game in the 5th, after being hit in the shoulder by a pitch during the 3rd inning." - @ Fox Sports: MLB
The Friars were leading the game 3-2 before Soto got beamed. Henry apologized for the incident and stated that it wasn't intentional. What was unforgiven was the Padres, who were seemingly booed by their own fans.
Fans were split about the booing incident. The probable reason for the booing could be that Soto has struggled since his arrival from Washington. Juan Soto has been batting a measly .232 with three home runs in 29 games for the Friars.
Some came to Soto's rescue and indicated that the booing was directed towards the whole team for not stepping up.
The San Diego Padres managed to come up with the win against the Diamondbacks 6-3 and have positioned themselves in the NL Wild Card places.
Juan Soto's cold start for the San Diego Padres
With Fernando Tatis Jr. suspended for a long while, the Padres will heavily rely on the big bats of Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Josh Bell to propel them into the postseason.
However, Soto is yet to find his MVP-caliber form on the West Coast. As pointed out by Bob Nightengale, Soto has been stone cold in his last nine games, going 2-for-28 for a .071 average.
While others believed that Soto made no impact on the team, others directed their hate towards the columnist Nightengale. Some fans were insinuating that the MLB insider had been too harsh and nitpicked Soto for no good reason.
Whatever the case maybe, Soto needs to find a way to turn his fortunes around.