Juan Soto did not need many swings to shape Wednesday night at Globe Life Field. He homered in the third inning, drew three intentional walks and scored twice. Texas spent much of the game trying to keep the Mets’ biggest threat from beating it directly.
Twice, that calculation worked. The third time, the Rangers moved the danger down the lineup and Brett Baty supplied the punishment.
That was the central tension in New York’s 7-2 victory over Texas: intentional walks are not failures simply because they appear in a losing box score. They are trades. Texas accepted extra traffic to avoid Soto’s bat, and for two innings the next hitter could not make the Rangers pay.
In the ninth, Bo Bichette extended the inning and Baty ended the argument with one swing.
The first walk: a reasonable escape
The first intentional walk came in the fifth inning with two outs and runners on first and second. Francisco Lindor had just flown out, and Soto was due next. His two-run homer off Cody Bradford in the third had already put New York ahead 2-0, so the choice carried an obvious risk in either direction.
Tyler Alexander put Soto on. That brought Bichette to the plate with the inning still alive, but Bichette grounded out and the threat ended without another run. Alexander, who had entered during the inning, completed the escape.
The detail matters. Soto’s walk did not become an automatic run, and the extra baserunner did not produce a scoring hit. Texas declined the matchup with Soto and got the outcome it wanted from Bichette. A strategy should be judged by the situation it creates and by the result that follows, not merely by whether the game eventually goes the other way.
The second walk: bases loaded, no damage
The seventh-inning decision was more demanding. Francisco Álvarez singled, A.J. Ewing walked, Nick Morabito struck out and Lindor then flew out. With two outs, Texas intentionally walked Soto again.
As in the fifth, the walk loaded the bases. Álvarez advanced to third, Ewing moved to second and Soto took first. Bichette was again the hitter asked to change the inning, and again he failed to do so, flying out to right field.
Jacob Latz completed that escape after entering during the inning. Texas had now put Soto on twice with runners aboard and surrendered no runs either time. That does not prove every similar decision is correct; baseball is not generous enough to offer that kind of permanent ruling. It does show that the earlier walks were defensible in their actual outcomes.
The Rangers also kept the game close enough for those choices to matter. Nolan McLean held Texas to two runs over seven innings, but the Rangers tied the game in the fifth. Brandon Nimmo began the rally with a single.