One of the game’s premier hitters against an unparalleled arm with the game on the line.
$765 million against 103 mph.
Juan Soto against Mason Miller in a September ballgame that felt a month later.
This was baseball theater with the drama cranked up.
This was Mets heartache with the disappointment cranked up.
Soto barreled up a 102.6 mph pitch from Miller but could not straighten it out.
The would-be, game-tying home run went foul by a foot or less in an eventual 7-4 setback to the Padres on Wednesday night.
“It was a long strike,” Soto bemoaned after one of the more entertaining at-bats Citi Field will see this year.
The Mets had dug an early hole and did what they seldom have done this season: began climbing.
Against a vaunted San Diego bullpen, Francisco Alvarez lifted a home run to right-center and Cedric Mullins worked a walk before Francisco Lindor popped out in the seventh inning of what was then a game the Padres led 6-4.
Which is when Padres manager Mike Shildt — underscoring the importance of a game between the second wild-card holder and the third wild-card holder — called for his flame-throwing fireman.
The single hardest thrower in the sport was summoned for Soto and Pete Alonso, who each would have a chance to tie it up.
Soto stepped in and fouled off 101.2 mph heat from Miller.
“I thought from the first pitch, it was 101 and he was right on it,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
At 1-1, he swung through a 102.7 mph blink before laying off a slider in the dirt. Entering play, there had been 294 pitches of at least 102 mph recorded this season. One — Lourdes Gurriel Jr. against Miller last month — resulted in a homer.
At 2-2, Soto whipped his bat around to try to time a 102.6 mph fastball on the outside of the plate. Perhaps if it were 102.5 mph, the Mets would have been victorious.
He could not pull it, but he could get the barrel to the ball and drilled a shot to left, a crack that was immediately followed by a roaring Citi Field that believed Soto had tied the game.
“I knew it had enough power to go out,” Soto said. “Just didn’t know how long it was going to stay fair.”
The answer: not long enough. The ball sliced and averted the foul pole by “inches” Mendoza estimated. Soto’s home run trot was interrupted, he returned to the batter’s box and froze on a slider Miller dotted on the outside of the plate.
“He’s pretty good,” said Soto, who already had drilled his career-high-tying 41st homer of the season in the fifth. “His fastball is one of the best I’ve ever faced in my life.”
Alonso then meekly swung through a slider against Miller, who buzzed through the Mets in the seventh and eighth.
The Mets had one last chance in the ninth and brought Soto to the plate as the tying run against Robert Suarez, but Soto’s comebacker ended the Mets’ hopes of finally mounting a ninth-inning comeback.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
