{"id":575091,"date":"2026-04-10T02:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575091\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T02:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:39:08","slug":"how-the-mets-are-adjusting-to-life-without-juan-soto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575091\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Mets Are Adjusting To Life Without Juan Soto"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 The Mets<\/a>\u2019 best hitter isn\u2019t at his locker at Citi Field. He\u2019s not in the batting cages. He\u2019s not on the field, in his usual blue sweatshirt with his hoodie pulled up, in the still-freezing April temperatures in Queens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Juan Soto<\/a> is nowhere to be found because his directive is, simply, to rest.<\/p>\n

Soto strained his right calf while running the bases during the Mets\u2019 series against the Giants<\/a> at Oracle Park last weekend. He went on the injured list on April 4. The team expects the outfielder to miss anywhere from 2\u20133 weeks, at best.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No one around the Mets is happy about this, but they also understand that life, the schedule, and the games must go on. New York has to find a way to win without their superstar slugger, who was off to a terrific .355\/.412\/.516 start at the plate before he hit the shelf.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s irreplaceable,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor<\/a> told me at his locker on Wednesday. “He\u2019s a top-three player in the league. He\u2019s that good. As a team, we\u2019ve always said that it\u2019s about sticking together at a time like this. Gather around him and be all together in this, and support him and play for each other. I hope this is a very short,\u00a0very short IL for him.”<\/p>\n

So far, at least, the Mets have managed to stay afloat without Soto. Entering Thursday, they\u2019re 4-1 since he landed on the IL. The schedule has been kind to them in this stretch, with the Mets winning the series against the Giants while going for another series win against the Diamondbacks<\/a> on Thursday. They host a three-game set against the Athletics<\/a> on Friday to wrap up the soft part of their April itinerary.<\/p>\n

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(Photo by Lachlan Cunningham\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n

But things will get challenging on Monday, when the Dodgers<\/a> welcome the Mets in Los Angeles for their first matchup since June 2025, when they split the series at Chavez Ravine. The Mets will continue asking for their younger stars to step in Soto\u2019s absence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As a group we know we have a lot of depth in here,” Mets second baseman Marcus Semien<\/a> told me in the Citi Field clubhouse on Wednesday. “It\u2019s an opportunity for guys to play a little bit more. The main thing is we all have his back. And we\u2019ll just let him know, we\u2019ll all hold it down until he comes back. It\u2019s a little hiccup for him. But at the end of the day, we\u2019ve been playing some good baseball.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been uncanny to see part-time players and bench bats take charge without Soto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, infielder Ronny Mauricio<\/a> was promoted from the minor leagues to the majors to replace Soto on the 26-man roster. Hours later, his first big-league hit of the year was a three-run walk-off home run in extra innings against Arizona. Earlier in that same game, outfielder Jared Young<\/a> delivered a key sacrifice fly to tie the game in the eighth inning. Infielder Mark Vientos was a huge factor in the series finale against the Giants on Sunday, which was Soto\u2019s first missed game, going 3-for-5 with an RBI two runs scored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if those role players performing has helped Soto ease any pressure of wanting to return to the lineup as fast as possible. As previously mentioned, the outfielder has vanished from the usual pregame preparation and day-to-day activities. But the Mets broadcasting the weeks-long timeline for Soto\u2019s return on the very same day he went on the IL is an indication that the team is not messing around with his recovery.<\/p>\n

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(Photo by Evan Bernstein\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n

As much as Soto may be itching to hit again, the silver lining is the timing of his injury on the baseball calendar. Right now, the Mets can afford to play it safe.<\/p>\n

“You definitely want to be patient with injuries like that,” Semien said. “You\u2019ve seen guys have nagging things and they try to come back too quick, and it ends up being a bigger deal. That\u2019s going to be hard, because he\u2019s a guy who\u2019s played in 160-plus games in most seasons.”<\/p>\n

J.D. Martinez Gets Comfortable Upstairs<\/p>\n

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(Photo by Kevork Djansezian\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n

J.D. Martinez received a text when news dropped last week that the retired slugger joined the Mets as a special assistant to baseball operations. The message was from his former 2024 Mets teammate, Jose Iglesias, with a screenshot of the news and three letters: “OMG.”<\/p>\n

Those three letters are the name of a popular song by Iglesias, who moonlights as a singer-songwriter named Candelita. The 2024 Mets rallied behind the song and went all the way to the National League Championship Series that season, with Martinez and Iglesias revered at the time as the team\u2019s two vital clubhouse leaders. After his lone season with the Mets, Martinez sat out the 2025 season before rejoining the organization as a member of the front office this month. On Wednesday, Martinez started settling into his new role upstairs.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s interesting,” Martinez said of the front-office side of baseball, speaking in the Mets dugout on Wednesday. “Yesterday, they took me up there and it\u2019s like an army up there. It\u2019s kind of wild. I was like, \u2018Wait. These are all the people that give us information and help us out?!\u2019 And they were like, \u2018Yeah. This is behind-the-scenes.\u2019 I\u2019ve never seen anything like this.<\/p>\n

“I was a little intimidated by it, because they\u2019re a lot smarter than us. But then I come down here and everything feels normal again. So it\u2019s something that I definitely want to continue to learn from. I think it would be good for me to be in those meetings.”<\/p>\n

Martinez has stayed in contact with the Mets, including president of baseball operations David Stearns, since that 2024 season. He envisions his role to involve mainly mentorship and strategy, while relaying to the front office what the players\u2019 perspective can be throughout the season, acting as a liaison between the two sides. Martinez in \u201824 was known to go out of his way to help players out. Now, he\u2019ll have the time in the world to do just that.<\/p>\n

“This could be fun,” Martinez said of his thought process when deciding to join the organization. “I like what they\u2019re doing here. I like the team they built here. I had a great experience here with the front office, with ownership, with the clubhouse, everything. It was just a really fun place to come. So I said, why not? Let\u2019s do it.”<\/p>\n

Deesha Thosar<\/a>\u00a0covers Major League Baseball<\/a> as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at\u00a0@DeeshaThosar<\/a>.<\/p>\n