Judge on Soto's slow start with Mets: 'He's going to be just fine'

NEW YORK -- Though Juan Soto acknowledges his at-bats have changed without “the best hitter in baseball” waiting in the on-deck circle, Yankees captain Aaron Judge believes his former teammate will soon hit his stride with the Mets.

Soto’s remarks to the New York Post created a hot-button topic on Tuesday, one day after the Mets outfielder explained that pitchers seem to be attacking him less aggressively without Judge’s protection.

“It’s definitely different,” Soto told Mike Puma. “I had the best hitter in baseball hitting behind me. I was getting more attacked and more pitches in the strike zone, less intentional walks and things like that. I was pitched differently last year.”

The fearsome pairing of Soto and Judge powered the Yankees to their first World Series since 2009, joining Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (1927, ’30, ’31) and Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle (1961) as the third set of Yankees teammates to each hit at least 40 home runs in a season.

But that dream duo only lasted a season, with Soto parlaying his career-high 41-homer performance into a 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets. (The Yankees are believed to have had the runner-up offer, at $760 million over 16 years).

Soto said he is “not trying to be selfish” and is willing to take his walks if pitchers don’t challenge; he has worked 14 free passes in 16 games entering Tuesday, posting a .250/.400/.429 slash line with four doubles, two homers and six RBIs.

Soto’s homer on Monday at Minnesota was his first since the season’s second game. According to Statcast, Soto saw 46.5 percent of pitches in the strike zone last year. So far with the Mets, that has dipped to 43.2 percent, which would be a career low.

Judge said he did not want to “go back and forth with this,” but he complimented Soto’s new protector in first baseman Pete Alonso, who entered Tuesday third in the Majors with 19 RBIs, behind Judge and the Giants’ Wilmer Flores (20).

“He's got probably one of the best hitters in the game behind him right now with what Alonso is doing. It's been fun to watch,” Judge said. “He's hitting [.345] and driving the ball all over the field, driving guys in. So they're going to be just fine.

“I've seen Soto now watching the league for so many years, and getting a chance to see him up close -- he can look at what I did last April for an example of, he just needs to keep being himself. He's going to be just fine.”

Judge is off to a much better start than last season, when he hit .207/.340/.414 with six homers and 18 RBIs in March/April, then went on to win his second American League Most Valuable Player Award.

That has helped the Yanks continue to produce without Soto; they lead the American League with 99 runs scored entering play Tuesday, second in the Majors only to the Cubs (120).

Judge mentioned contributions from Ben Rice, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt as additional factors.

“You can't replace a guy like Soto. He's 1 of 1,” Judge said. “That's why he signed the deal he did, and why all the teams -- I think all 30 teams were after a guy like that. But I think this is where I've kind of talked about it all Spring Training, this is a big year for a lot of our young guys to step up and do something big and kind of help carry this team.”

Judge and Soto are about a month away from their first Subway Series showdown, a three-game series to be played at Yankee Stadium May 16-18.