Star slugger Juan Soto was pulled from the New York Mets’ starting roster for Sunday’s matchup against the Miami Marlins after falling ill.
Manager Carlos Mendoza revealed that Soto arrived at the stadium Sunday morning suffering from a fever and body aches.
“Soto’s ill, so he is out of the lineup,” Mendoza told reporters before the game. “He’s been battling the past three days, show up with fever today, body aches, didn’t have much sleep. Hopefully he recovers.”
“There’s a lot of people for the past week have been dealing with this. Kind of a like a flu going around,” Mendoza added.
The team had planned to use Soto as their designated hitter batting third in the order. MJ Melendez will now take over the DH role instead.
The 27-year-old Soto connected for a solo home run during New York’s 2-1 defeat to Miami on Friday. The four-time All-Star and 2020 National League batting champion currently leads the team with 10 home runs while posting 21 RBIs and maintaining a .294 batting average across 37 games this season.
