in his first game back from a 31-game absence<\/a> that he said was the longest of his career, remained in the game. <\/p>\nInterim manager Andy Green said he wanted to give Soto all the time he needed \u2014 and would\u2019ve even gotten ejected if the umpires said to speed things up. <\/p>\n
And then Soto delivered the spark the Mets envisioned when they got their $765 million star back, with Soto plating Francisco Lindor with an RBI single to ignite a three-run burst for the Mets (61-75) in the fifth inning of their 6-2 win over the Astros at Citi Field.<\/p>\n
Jared Young, who keeps playing his way into 2027 conversations, drove in a career-best three runs, including two on a triple just batters after Soto singled. <\/p>\n
Juan Soto hits an RBI single to drive home Francisco Lindor in the fifth inning of the Mets\u2019 6-2 win over the Astros on Aug. 29, 2026 at Citi Field. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
Nolan McLean delivered another gem across seven innings of work. <\/p>\n
And the Mets moved to 14-9 in their past 23 games, adding to a promising stretch that is likely far too late to impact the postseason picture but still gives them promising strides to build on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re bringing a lot of young talent from the minor leagues,\u201d Soto said, \u201cand now seeing them play and the way they\u2019re playing and seeing everything is clicking for us, I think it\u2019s really cool to see. I think it means a lot not only for this year, for the next years coming \u2014 and I\u2019m just really happy about it, the way we\u2019ve been playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s another thing, too, that motivated me a little bit more to come back, to try to join this positive wave and try to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever since his injury over a month ago, Soto remained adamant. <\/p>\n
He planned to play again in 2026, even in a lost season featuring another trade deadline sale. \u201cHe pretty much declared it right away,\u201d Green said pregame.<\/p>\n
Nolan McLean held Houston to one run over seven innings to pick up the win in the Mets\u2019 victory over the Astros. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
And then Soto followed through \u2014 without even a rehab assignment. He was back hitting second, serving as the designated hitter and finishing 1-for-4. <\/p>\n
When asked what made him comfortable with Soto skipping a rehab assignment, Green referenced Soto\u2019s return from a right calf strain earlier this year without one, and Soto said he knew \u201cfrom day one\u201d that he wouldn\u2019t need a stint in the minors.<\/p>\n
There are still questions the Mets will need to answer about Soto and their lineup moving forward. <\/p>\n
Green admitted that \u201can element of this remains day to day\u201d and will require checks and days off when needed, while Soto said he expects to mostly DH for now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty comfortable, definitely with my calf and all that kind of stuff,\u201d Soto said, \u201cbut at the end of the day, we gotta remember I came a little bit shorter than they expected and I didn\u2019t do any rehab assignments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Soto even had a chance to hit Saturday, the Mets trailed 1-0, as Jeremy Pe\u00f1a hit a leadoff double into the left field corner that skipped between Brett Baty\u2019s legs off the wall, allowing Pe\u00f1a to end up at third. <\/p>\n
He scored when Yordan Alvarez collected a sacrifice fly. <\/p>\n
Carson Benge (right) and Juan Soto (left) celebrate with second baseman Marcus Semien after they score on Jared Young\u2019s two-run RBI triple in the fifth inning of the Mets\u2019 win over the Astros. Bill Kostroun\/New York Post<\/p>\n
McLean, who didn\u2019t record his first strikeout until the second out of the fifth inning, settled down from there and didn\u2019t allow another runner to reach second base the rest of his start while retiring 20 of the next 24 batters.<\/p>\n
The Mets responded in the bottom of the first when Lindor walked, advanced to second on a balk and scored on Young\u2019s single. <\/p>\n
In the fifth, Soto delivered to shift the tenor in the Mets\u2019 favor for good. <\/p>\n
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Alvarez homered in the eighth to pull the Astros back within two, but the Mets added insurance in the bottom of the frame when Francisco Alvarez drove in a pair of runs with a double before Kodai Senga recorded the final three outs while pitching on a second consecutive day.<\/p>\n
That allowed the offensive spark ignited by Soto to serve as the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve said it plenty of times: He\u2019s right up there with the absolute best hitters on the planet,\u201d Green said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a season of injury scares with Juan Soto, the Mets \u2014 on the pitch before the swing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35073,20390,20,9,11,320,10,35582,319],"class_list":["post-333054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-houston-astros","tag-juan-soto","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-news","tag-nolan-mclean","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}