It was around the time he fouled off the fourth straight pitch, the sixth he’d seen, that Juan Soto knew he would send the New York Yankees to their 41st World Series. This was why they had brought him here, why they had traded the farm for one October with him, but he wasn’t thinking about that. This was the moment he had been dreaming of since spring training, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was the final piece of a team that for 15 years hasn’t quite been good enough, that has gone from the premier franchise in sports to an organization that spent the offseason reevaluating everything. Of course, he wasn’t thinking about that, either.
Soto was thinking: Be ready. He’s going to make a mistake—and you’re going to hit it.
