An eventful day in left-center for Soto

CHICAGO - The way the Nationals are hitting as a whole right now, sometimes it feels like Juan Soto gets overlooked. It's hard to give everyone proper due when so many are contributing at the plate, especially a prominent free-agent-to-be like Anthony Rendon.

Make no mistake, though: Soto has played a significant role in the Nationals' offensive onslaught of the last week and a half. Over his last 13 games, the young slugger is batting a cool .346 with eight homers, 12 RBIs, 10 walks and a 1.317 OPS. He's even scored a run in 11 of those 13 games.

And Soto played a major role in Friday's 9-3 thumping of the Cubs, putting on a show in a marquee game at Wrigley Field.

Soto went 3-for-4 with a home run and a walk. He scored four times. The one out he made came on a line drive to left field in the top of the first. And four of his five plate appearances came against lefties.

The 20-year-old's most impressive at-bat was his seventh-inning homer off reliever David Phelps, in which he drove the ball 412 feet to left-center field. On a day when the wind was blowing in off Lake Michigan, that opposite-field blast into the bleachers was no cheapie.

And it was an especially encouraging sign for Soto himself.

"When I hit the ball to left-center, that's the part of the field I love to hit the ball," he said. "Every time I hit the ball that way, I feel really good, cause that's my power side. Lately I've been hitting the ball to right-center, because they are throwing me away, or whatever. But when I hit left-center, I love that."

It's a great example of Soto's impressively advanced approach to hitting. For most young sluggers, the power side is the pull side. For Soto, it's to the opposite field.

Indeed, 15 of his 29 homers this season have been hit to the opposite field, 11 of those specifically to left-center.

Speaking of left-center field, there was another memorable moment in Friday's game involving Soto in that very spot. It came in the bottom of the seventh, when Nicholas Castellanos sent a long fly ball to the warning track.

Soto camped under the ball, ready to make a routine catch ... only to watch as Victor Robles showed up out of nowhere to snag the ball himself right in front of him. As Robles, the center fielder, kept running toward left with the ball, Soto continued to stand at the warning track with his glove up in the air, waiting for a ball that never reached him.

And what did Soto think of his teammate and good friend swiping that ball from him?

"I'm like: He's the center fielder. It's his right," Soto said. "If he caught it, we're good. Now, if he missed it, we got trouble. He's the center fielder. He can do all the stuff. We just talk about communication next time. But that's fun."

When you do all the work ... and your best friend gets all the credit. pic.twitter.com/mcH7cap9vX

-- Nationals on MASN (@masnNationals) August 23, 2019