Author: MLB Baseball News, Scores, Standings, Rumors, Fantasy Games

Here are five things to watch and predictions as the Mets and Red Sox play a three-game series in Boston starting on Monday at 6:45 p.m. on SNY.

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5 things to watch

Where has the offense gone?

The Mets scored just six runs during their three-game series in the Bronx over the weekend, which is shocking considering how much offense is usually generated at the band box that is the new Yankee Stadium.

Also shocking? The Mets didn't hit a single home run all weekend.

The offensive rut started before the Yankees series, though, with New York managing only six runs during its three-game set against the Pirates that preceded it.

In fairness to the Mets, two of those games against Pittsburgh featured starting pitchers Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller. But the Mets have to be better.

If you want the easiest answer as to why they've had so much trouble scoring runs lately, you can look to the top three in the order, with Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Pete Alonso all in mini slumps.

Kodai Senga looks to stay hot

Senga continued his dominance during his last start against the Pirates, when he allowed one run in 5.2 innings while giving up five hits, walking two, and striking out seven.

At the time, the lone run -- which scored because of a literal hole in Mark Vientos' glove -- was earned. But a scoring change after the game correctly removed that earned run from Senga's ledger.

Because of that, Senga now leads the majors with a 1.02 ERA (among all starters with 44.0 innings pitched or more).

He'll get the ball for Monday's series-opener.

How much more burn will Mark Vientos get at third base?

As much as Vientos has worked to improve at third base (and he's worked a ton), he continues to struggle there. And it's hurting the Mets.

His error early on Sunday against the Yankees opened the door for two runs.

And Vientos' recent struggles at the hot corner aren't an aberration.

Going by Outs Above Average, he has graded out as one of the worst defenders in all of baseball this season -- in the first percentile.

With Jesse Winker out, Brett Baty up, and the DH spot open, it's fair to wonder how much longer the Mets will continue to roll with Vientos at third.

Can the Mets get to Garrett Crochet?

The prize of Boston's offseason, Crochet has gotten off to a torrid start.

In an American League-leading 63.0 innings over 10 starts, Crochet has been close to untouchable.

He has a 2.00 ERA and 1.06 WHIP to go along with 73 strikeouts.

Crochet gets the start on Wednesday.

The Red Sox have yet to find their footing

Boston enters this series with a 23-25 record, in second place in the AL East, and trailing the first-place Yankees by 5.0 games.

It's been a season of fits and starts, and the Red Sox are in a cold snap right now -- having won just one of their last six games (they were swept by the Tigers and just lost two of three to the Braves).

The Red Sox are seemingly too talented to have this go on much longer, though.

One good sign for them is that star outfielder Jarren Duran is starting to heat up.

Predictions

Who will the MVP of the series be?

Pete Alonso

Alonso will take out his frustration over Sunday's game-changing error at Yankee Stadium.

Which Mets pitcher will have the best start?

Kodai Senga

It's impossible to list anyone else at this point.

Which Red Sox player will be a thorn in the Mets' side?

Rafael Devers

Devers is having another MVP-level season, with a .921 OPS.

No team has won a series from the Dodgers this month until the Angels swept them over the weekend. For the Angels, a great weekend.

On one hand, maybe this is the start of something big. The Minnesota Twins just put up a 13-game winning streak. Why can’t the Angels?

On the other hand, the Angels just swept the world’s best team and they still are in last place.

No team had a gloomier outlook than the Athletics this time last year, coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons and playing out a somber final season at the Oakland Coliseum. But the A’s finished ahead of the Angels last season, and the A’s are ahead of the Angels again this season.

Read more:Angels defeat Shohei Ohtani and rival Dodgers, but they aspire for much more

The A’s rebuild all the time: build, win, lose the best players and lose lots of games, rebuild. For all of this century, A’s ownership has maintained it could not spend big without big revenue from a new stadium. When the A’s get to Las Vegasin three or four years, we’ll see.

The A’s never have spent $70 million on a contract, or $100 million on an annual team payroll. In this century, however, they have more postseason appearances and more winning seasons than the Angels.

After the 2021 season — a fourth consecutive winning season that included three playoff berths — the A’s decided it would cost them too much to keep winning. The owners locked out players that winter, and the wrecking ball hit as soon as the lockout ended.

“Within the first hour,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said last week at Dodger Stadium, “we had traded Matt Olson.”

The Atlanta Braves acquired Olson, an All-Star first baseman, to replace Freddie Freeman. By week’s end, the A’s had traded two other All-Stars, third baseman Matt Chapman and pitcher Chris Bassitt. By year’s end, they also had traded pitcher Sean Manaea and catcher Sean Murphy.

“That made it very difficult to bounce back quickly without being able to use the free-agent market,” general manager David Forst said.

The Olson trade brought back catcher and cleanup batter Shea Langeliers. The Chapman and Bassitt trades each netted a back-end starting pitcher, Gunnar Hoglund and J.T. Ginn.

“Those are the types of trades we have to hit on to have success,” Kotsay said.

And, without being able to use the free-agent market, the A’s also had to find success with draft picks and waiver claims.

“I’m an example of that,” All-Star outfielder Brent Rooker said. “I was a waiver claim, came in, took advantage, and played well enough to continue to earn at-bats.

“The people here have played a huge part in my development and my success the last few years, to turn what was viewed as a 4-A, roster depth guy into a productive big leaguer.”

The Dodgers do that all the time: Max Muncy, Evan Phillips, Chris Taylor.

David Eckstein, the shortstop on the Angels’ 2002 World Series championship team, was a waiver claim. The Angels hoped that outfielder Mickey Moniak, a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Phillies, might blossom with opportunity and a change of scenery; he turned out to be what Rooker had been told he was.

Of the A’s top picks in the past five drafts, three play prominent roles now: outfielder Tyler Soderstrom and infielders Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson. A fourth, infielder Max Muncy (no relation to the Dodgers’ Max Muncy), has split time this season between triple A and the majors.

They’re all 22 or 23 years old. Forst quickly credited the A’s longtime scouting director, Eric Kubota.

“When you look at our team now, it is clear what an outstanding job Eric and his team have done in the draft the last five years,” Forst said.

The Angels can take a few bows in these areas. Shortstop Zach Neto, a first-round draft pick, is emerging as one of the best players in the American League. Neto, catcher Logan O’Hoppe (trade) and first baseman Nolan Schanuel (first-round draft pick) are the only three Angels to play in at least half the team’s games and perform above the league average.

However, on the night I visited with the A’s last week, Rooker batted third and Langeliers batted fourth, and no one in the starting lineup nor the starting pitcher was older than 30.

That same night for the Angels, veteran stopgaps Yoán Moncada and Jorge Soler batted third and fourth, respectively. Of their 10 starters that night, including the pitcher, five were older than 30.

And, of the 10 starters for the Angels’ triple-A team that night, one was drafted by the team. He was a 13th-round pick, batting eighth.

The Angels’ starting pitchers have been healthy, but on that front the team is a couple injuries from potential disaster.

In the 2021 draft, the Angels attempted to shore up an organizational weakness by drafting all pitchers, all but one of the 21 from college rather than high school and thus closer to the majors. The combined WAR of the two that made it to Anaheim: 0.6.

Read more:The future of Angel Stadium? Anaheim puts the issue on hold

The A’s organizational winning percentage (the combined record of their minor league teams) ranked fourth among the 30 teams entering play Sunday, with a better run differential than any organization except the Milwaukee Brewers, according to J.J. Cooper of Baseball America.

The Angels’ organizational winning percentage ranked 27th, with a worse run differential than any organization except the Washington Nationals. (The best organizational winning percentage? The Dodgers, of course, tied with the Brewers.)

What the Angels need most are high-end prospects, such as Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages, whom the Angels had agreed to acquire in a 2020 trade vetoed by owner Arte Moreno, and like the ones they could have acquired for Shohei Ohtani in 2022 or 2023. No veteran on the Angels’ active roster would command high-end prospects in return.

Moreno chose to try to win with Ohtani, even after Ohtani had declined to discuss an extension in the year before free agency. Moreno always chooses to try to win, in the name of fans whom he believes would not want to sit through a 100-loss season.

Trouble is, the Angels lost 99 games last season, with too many veteran placeholders and not enough prospects, and attendance fell anyway.

The Angels this season are paying the injured Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon just about as much as the A’s are paying their entire roster. Fangraphs on Sunday put the A’s chance of making the playoffs at 10.7% and the Angels’ chance at 0.8%.

Read more:Shaikin: Zach Neto isn't Mike Trout, but he might be capable of saving the Angels

The A’s, with their collection of rising position players, could have been an attractive destination for the affordable and talented Roki Sasaki, who chose the Dodgers.

“There were places he specifically wanted to play,” Forst said, “and Sacramento was not on his list.”

Rebuilds take time, and the A’s are not at the finish line yet. The Angels are treading water until Rendon’s contract expires in 2026 — the same year Neto and O’Hoppe become eligible for salary arbitration. Being active is one thing. Being proactive is quite another.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

In some ways, this weekend’s Subway Series could’ve been about the Mets taking over this baseball town. They came to the Yankees’ house toting their free-agent prize, Juan Soto, pried from the Bronx last winter, along with a terrific pitching staff, a star shortstop and a better record. Maybe even better buzz citywide.

But the series ended and the Mets certainly didn’t look like the better team, especially after Sunday’s thud of a performance, an 8-2 loss that went kablooey in the eighth inning after Pete Alonso made a horrendous throw at first that allowed the go-ahead run to score, tilting a tight game.

Same old Mets?

Hopefully not. A few months from now, the Mets might be the better team and they’re so talented, on the field and in the front office, that an October stage should be their ultimate proving ground, regardless of what turn the rivalry might take next. The 29-18 Mets lost two of three, but still have a better record than the Yankees (27-19).

But their defense, something David Stearns has said the team could improve, hurt them badly Sunday night. Another recent bugaboo -- hitting with runners in scoring position -- stood out as a fail point once again. The Mets, who are ranked 25th in MLB in average with RISP, were 4-for-25 (.160) in such situations in the three games against the Yanks, including 1-for-7 Sunday.

Overall Sunday, the Mets had just three hits, none after the fourth inning. Soto, who was booed loudly all weekend in a stadium that adored him just a year ago, was 1-for-10 in the series, including 0-for-4 Sunday, with two runs scored. He walked four times, struck out thrice and stole two bases. Yes, there were some hard-hit outs. But there sure were a lot of outs.

To make the rivalry optics worse, the Yankees’ winter Plan B looked A-OK in this head-to-head. Key members of the group of players the Yanks turned to after Soto picked the Mets in a seismic free-agent faceoff were big pinstriped stars on Sunday.

Max Fried threw six sharp innings, Cody Bellinger drove home six runs and blew open the game with an eighth-inning grand slam. Paul Goldschmidt added an insurance RBI single and scored twice. Devin Williams, the demoted closer, contributed a scoreless setup inning both Friday and Sunday and was the winning pitcher in the finale.

Soto moving to Queens for a 15-year, $765-million deal gave a forever jolt to borough rivalry. Never had a player anywhere close to his stature left the Yankees for the Mets. He instantly gave a good team an even bigger, better vibe.

But he’s got to do more. He’s batting .246 with eight home runs and 20 RBI. His .822 OPS over a slow -- for him -- shows how high his floor is. His first foray into the Subway Series as a Met was, to say the least, a disappointment. 

It’s a decent descriptor of the Mets for the whole series. They won the middle game, an entertaining affair that had pitching, power and some nifty defense. They lost the two bookends, managing a total of eight hits in the two losses.

Sunday, a first-inning error by Mark Vientos on a grounder hit by the first Yankee hitter, Goldschmidt, opened a path to two quick runs. In the eighth, with the infield in, Alonso fielded Jorbit Vivas’ grounder as Jasson Dominguez broke on contact for the plate.

On Saturday, Alonso threw Dominguez out at the plate on a similar plate. This time, Alonso’s toss sailed wide. Dominguez scored to break a 2-2 tie and the Yankees gorged afterward.

Alonso, to his credit, quickly came out to talk to reporters and gave himself every bit of blame for the loss.

“I just made an awful throw,” Alonso said. “I mean, that whole inning, this game, it’s on me. After that throw, the momentum got out of hand and they had really good at-bats. This one’s on me and it stinks because I had the same play (Saturday). I feel like, for me, that’s a play that I usually make and I can make pretty routinely.

“I had my feet set and I just didn’t get my fingers on top of the baseball and it sailed on me. … It’s really frustrating.”

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he feels like his team has played good defense for stretches this season. But, he acknowledged, there have been plays that should have been made that haven’t been.

“This is something that we got to get better at,” Mendoza said. “And we will.”

They’ll have a chance to show it starting Monday in Boston. Then comes a series with the Dodgers at Citi Field, an NLCS rematch sure to attract eyeballs, to say nothing of hype.

The next crack at the Yankees? That begins July 4 at Citi Field. It’ll be another charged atmosphere, another measuring stick. A chance for Soto to edit the story of his current place in the rivalry.

They’ll have to be better then.

The Yankees broke an eighth-inning tie with a six-run frame that made the difference in Sunday's rubber game against the Mets, taking the first of the 2025 season's two three-game Subway Series matchups and feeding off the energy.

"It's fun playing at Yankee Stadium when it feels like it matters a lot," said Aaron Boone.

After Friday's 6-2 win, the Yankees bounced back from Saturday's 3-2 loss with a late-game breakthrough.

"I thought all three games were really good," Boone said. "Obviously, we came up winning two of 'em and rode a big inning tonight late. It felt like, either way, the whole time, I think clearly two really good teams having a little fun in May."

With the NL East-leading Mets (29-18) as the latest opponent, the Yankees (27-19) have won four consecutive series and hold a five-game lead in the AL East.

"I think anytime you win a series it's important," said Max Fried, who held the Mets to two runs on three hits while striking out eight and walking two in six innings. "Obviously, rivals and same city -- that sort of thing -- there's a little extra to it. But the series that feel like a playoff series are always good, especially earlier in the year -- it gets the juices going and preps you for the baseball you want to play towards the end."

The Yankees and Mets meet again July 4-6 at Citi Field with all three games scheduled to be on SNY.

"It's always fun playing the Subway Series," said Aaron Judge. "It doesn't matter what year it is. It's always going to be exciting. The fans always get into it. It's always back and forth, different chants -- the cheering, the booing, everything -- but two good ballclubs going after it."

The Subway Series didn’t quite go as planned for the Mets. 

They dropped two out of the three games in the Bronx with the latest one coming in ugly fashion -- as a Pete Alonso error in the bottom of the eighth led to the Yankees scoring six times to close out the series victory. 

The Mets were sloppy defensively. They scored just seven runs over the three games. Simply put, they were outplayed in almost every facet of the game.

But they can’t sit back and sulk over it because the road ahead doesn’t get any easier. 

The Mets head out to Boston for three games with the Red Sox starting on Monday before returning home to host Shohei Ohtani and the high-powered Dodgers for a three-game weekend set. 

“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We knew that this is a good team -- we didn’t get the job done and we lost the series. Now we have to get ready for another good team before we start thinking about what’s next. 

“That’s our mentality here, we have to turn the page -- I think we do a pretty good job of doing that. I’m pretty sure the guys will be ready to go tomorrow for a new series against a very good team in Boston.”

How can they turn things around? Alonso simply says by playing “clean quality baseball.”

“That’s really what it boils down to,” he said. “I think we did a good job of battling and putting together quality at-bats tonight and throughout the weekend, it’s just a matter of making plays and driving in a couple of runs when guys are on base.”

Taking the mound against Yankees ace Max Friedin Sunday night’s Subway Series finale, David Peterson gave the Mets the exact type of effort they were looking for.

The southpaw was hurt by his defense early, as the slow-footed Paul Goldschmidt reached on a Mark Vientos error leading off the bottom of the first, and then Cody Bellinger drove in the first two runs of the game after an Aaron Judge double. 

Peterson did well to settle in after that -- working around a leadoff single in the second and then a two out walk in the bottom of the third before putting together his first 1-2-3 frame of the night. 

The Yanks threatened again in the fifth, as three walks (one intentional to Judge) loaded the bases for Anthony Volpe, but the southpaw was able to bare down and got him to groundout to short to end the inning. 

Peterson then closed his night with a perfect bottom of the sixth -- giving him another quality start with a final line of two runs (one earned) on three hits while walking four and striking out four. 

“For him to go six there, going toe to toe with Max, that was important,” Carlos Mendoza said. “He kept us in the game, he kept getting groundballs -- we weren’t able to make the play in the first, but he mixed his pitches well against a good lineup and was good overall.”

The Mets let this one slip away with a six-run, eighth-inning meltdown.

Still, seeing Peterson put together another strong effort against this high-powered offense is an encouraging sign for the Mets. The former first-round pick has now allowed less than two earned runs in four consecutive outings, helping him bring his ERA down to 2.86 on the season.

“It was a good battle,” Peterson said. “It’s always fun going into these pitcher battles. Our offense grinded as much as they could and they put up a really good fight -- but overall, I felt good. I was on the same page as (Francisco Alvarez), and we have a really good game plan.”

The Mets were knotted in another close one with the Yankees. 

After David Peterson worked his way through six efficient innings, Huascar Brazoban entered and somehow danced his way out of a bases loaded jam in the bottom of the seventh to keep things evened at two a piece.

Ryne Stanek was handed the bottom of the eighth -- and things didn’t go as planned.  

The right-hander found himself in immediate danger as he issued a leadoff walk to Jasson Dominguez and then Austin Wells lined a one out double down the right-field line to put two in scoring position. 

Jorbit Vivas worked an 11-pitch at-bat before rolling one down to Pete Alonso. The big first baseman fielded the ball cleanly, but with the speedy Dominguez running on contact he uncorked a throw extremely wide of home, allowing the go-ahead run to score easily. 

After a pitching change, the Bombers were sure to make the Mets pay, as they tacked on five more runs with a Paul Goldschmidt single and Cody Bellingerthree-run homer to put this one away for good.

“I messed it up,” Alonso said. “I had the identical play (Saturday) where it was hit straight to me and it was a tag play at home, and I just made an awful throw. That whole inning, this game, it’s on me -- after that throw the momentum got out of hand. 

“It stinks because it’s the same play and I feel like that’s a play that I usually make and I can make pretty routinely, but I just had my feet set and didn’t get my fingers around the baseball and it sailed on me -- bad throw on me, this one is 100 percent on me.”

Alonso’s throw certainly was the biggest miscue of the game -- but he wasn’t alone in what was another poor defensive showing from the Mets.

Mark Vientos bobbled what should've been a routine groundball leading off the bottom of the first, allowing Goldschmidt to reach base safely -- and he scored just a few batters later on a Bellinger two-run single off of Alonso’s glove. 

And this is just the latest sloppy effort in what's quickly developing into an early season problem for New York -- Carlos Mendoza says it has to change. 

“We’ve been through some stretches where it’s been sharp,” the skipper said. “But also there’s been games where we’re not finishing plays or completing them, even some of the routine plays -- as we saw in the first inning tonight which led to a run.

“This is something that we have to get better at and we will because we have good defenders.”

Pete Alonso’s wild throw home allowed the Yankees to score the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of a ‘til-then taut game and the Yanks went on to win, 8-2, to take the first installment of this season’s Subway Series. 

With one out and runners on second and third and the score knotted at two, Jorbit Vivas smacked a hard grounder to Alonso at first and Jasson Dominguez broke from third base on contact. Alonso fielded the ball cleanly, but his throw was nowhere near the plate as Dominguez slid home.

It was the second error of the game for the Mets, who didn’t hit much, either. They had just three hits.

Alonso’s gaffe helped fuel a huge inning for the Yankees, who went on to score six times in the frame. Cody Bellingersmashed his ninth career grand slam and Paul Goldschmidt added an RBI single. 

The Yankees won two of three at Yankee Stadium over the weekend. Sunday’s game drew 48,028 fans, the biggest crowd at the Stadium so far this season.

The teams next meet in a three-game series at Citi Field beginning on the Fourth of July.

Here are some takeaways...

- The loss dropped the Mets (29-18) to below .500 on the road this season -- they are 12-13. The Yankees (27-19) are 15-9 at home. 

- Max Fried did not factor into the decision, but he gave the Yankees six very fine innings, allowing three hits and two runs. He struck out eight, walked two and threw 102 pitches. One highlight pitch -- he threw a tantalizing, 77-mile-per-hour curveball that flummoxed Juan Soto on a called strike three for the second out of the third inning. An indication of how good a season Fried is having -- his stingy outing actually raised his ERA from 1.11 to a still-sparkling 1.29. 

- David Peterson didn’t factor into the decision, either and he was just as effective as Fried, allowing two runs (one earned) and three hits over six frames. He walked four (one intentionally) and struck out fourth. He lowered his ERA from 3.05 to 2.86. 

- Defense, a facet of the game that David Stearns said was something the Mets could improve, bit them at the very beginning of the night. The Yankees took advantage of a Mark Vientos error, in part, to take a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Goldschmidt, the leadoff hitter, hit a grounder to third and Vientos bobbled it, putting a runner on first. One out later, Aaron Judge doubled to right and Bellinger followed with a double up the first-base line that plated two runs. Peterson got two ground balls to escape further damage, holding the Yanks two only a pair of runs, one of them unearned. It was the sixth error of the season for Vientos. 

- The Mets tied the score at two in the fifth inning, thanks to McNeil’s eye and legs. He worked an eight-pitch walk leading off, was sacrificed to second by Luisangel Acuña and went to third on a groundout by Francisco Lindor. When Fried bounced a pitch to Soto and it skipped away from Austin Wells, Jeff McNeil, who drove in the Mets' first run with an RBI single in the second, broke for the plate and scored on the wild pitch.

- Soto, who was a flashpoint player all weekend, made a fine running catch to end the fourth inning, racing back to snag a deep drive toward right-center by Wells. Wells’ smash was clocked at 99.8 miles per hour off the bat and had an expected batting average of .380.

- Mets manager Carlos Mendoza’s strategy impacted the Yankee fifth when he chose to intentionally walk Judge with a runner on second and two out and let Peterson pitch to Bellinger, a lefty-lefty matchup. Peterson walked Bellinger, but then got Anthony Volpe to ground out to short and the Yanks left the bases loaded. That was the first time Volpe made the final out of an inning with the bases loaded -- he struck out with the sacks full to end the seventh, too. 

- In the fateful eighth inning, relievers Ryne Stanek and Genesis Cabrera combined to allow six runs (three earned) and three hits. They threw a combined 50 pitches, 31 by Stanek.

Game MVP

Tough to choose anyone but Bellinger, who had six RBI total on the night and extended his hitting streak to 13 games by going 3-for-3 with two walks. He’s 20-for-53 (.377) during the streak with four homers and 12 RBI. His 13-game streak matched his career high.

Highlights

Jeff McNeil gets a run back for the Mets!

(via @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/EgqFT9Js09

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 18, 2025

"She's just over six months and she. Is. AWESOME! I'm loving every day of watching her grow up"

Brandon Nimmo on his daughter 🥹

(via @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/fUTUOKxxia

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 18, 2025

Juan Soto runs it down in the gap!

(via @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/im6x1x0LS7

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 19, 2025

The ball gets away from Austin Wells, Jeff McNeil comes home and the game is tied!

(via @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/x4SuG9KeEy

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 19, 2025

Francisco Lindor shared a laugh with Aaron Judge after Anthony Volpe grounded out 😅

(via @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/At6b5AtfNy

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 19, 2025

What's next

The Mets head to Boston to start a three-game set with the Red Sox on Monday at 6:45 p.m.

The Yankees have an off day before hosting the Texas Rangers for a three-game set on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m.

“Hey,” Starling Marte said to Juan Soto, grabbing him by both shoulders and forcing him to turn around. “This is what we do.”

It was the afternoon of May 1, and Soto had just hit his second home run of the game. He returned to the dugout, high-fived a few teammates, and appeared ready to move on with his day.

Marte, a smiling presence in a hoodie lurking behind Soto, saw the chance for a teaching moment. He nudged his younger teammate, then took hold of his upper body and spun him forward. Soto looked at the camera, flashing a pair of peace signs and a forced smile. Not good enough, not at Citi Field in the post-OMG era. Marte slapped Soto’s helmet; that induced a broad smile and ended the moment on high note.

“Whenever any of us hits a home run, we pose in front of the camera,” Marte said through an interpreter Sunday at Yankee Stadium. “When he hit that home run, he was about to just kind of go put his stuff back, and I pushed him. I said, ‘Hey, this is what we do.’ So now, if you ever see when he hits a home run, he's there posing.”

It was a small lesson, but indicative of the way that Marte has proven invaluable during Soto’s transition from the businesslike Yankees to the vibey Mets. Without fanfare, the veteran has devoted considerable time and energy into serving as an elder statesman to Soto and other young Mets.

“He’s a quiet leader,” says manager Carlos Mendoza. “He’s not going to go out of his way in front of people, but he will go out of his way when nobody sees it. That’s what makes him a special person. He’s very calm, and when he speaks -- man, people listen.”

Soto and Marte are both natives of the Dominican Republic and have known one another since Soto’s minor league days. When the Mets signed Soto, it meant pushing Marte, a two-time All-Star, into a job as a part-time designated hitter.

“I had to talk to him about his role,” Mendoza says. “We’re signing a player for the right field position, so you have to have that conversation right away. Right away, he understood. The first thing he said was, ‘I want to be a Met. I want to win with the Mets.’ That went a long way for me. After that it was, what can I do to help Juan?”

Says Marte: “Since we've known each other for a long time, I felt like it was my responsibility once he signed to try to make him feel more comfortable. Obviously, he's been on big-market teams and teams with a lot of guys before, but now he's new here, and a lot of us have been here together for quite a while.

“Maybe when he got here, he didn't feel as comfortable because he didn't have that same type of familiarity with all of us. So I took that responsibility to bring him into the group and try to make it feel more comfortable.”

Soto was not available for comment prior to Sunday’s game, but another of Marte’s acolytes, Mark Vientos, praised his leadership and ability to spot small advantages and tendencies within a game.

“He has helped me out a lot,” Vientos said. “He’s a team leader. It’s year fourteen for him, and he’s still at it with the same mentality. The game is super slow for him.”

Like Vientos, Soto is a young man who appreciates tough and honest mentorship. Unlike Vientos or anyone else in the game, he carries not only the largest contract in the history of American sports to his new job in Queens, but the weight of unfathomable expectations from a fan base whose very identity shifted after his arrival.

Folks in the organization believe that Soto has made significant progress settling in -- smiling more of late, and getting closer to the theatrical flow that has long made him the most exciting hitter in baseball.

“I see him talking to teammates all the time, sitting down with his teammates,” Marte said. “It's nice to see because that's what you want with a guy who's gonna be here for so long. I expect to see a lot more of that going on this year and for the next 15 years.”

On Friday night at Yankee Stadium, Soto even brought back a modified version of his famous shuffle, which has been missing for most of the season.

“I mean, it wasn't with too much swag,” Marte said with a smile. “I think once he starts to feel himself a little more, you're gonna start seeing it really coming out.”

Whenever it does, the team will know that Marte helped to bring it out -- and that Soto’s inevitable success as a Met will form part of Marte’s own legacy here, long after he is gone.