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Ortiz mystified by Soto's confidence: 'He's 7 years ahead of me'

Alex Trautwig / Major League Baseball / Getty

Juan Soto is drawing attention from a fellow countryman and one of the best to ever hold a baseball bat.

"The confidence this kid already has at 21 years old, I got that confidence at about 28 years old," David Ortiz said of the Washington Nationals outfielder in a Spanish-language interview on Streamable. "He's seven years ahead of me. What do you think is going to happen with that kid?"

Ortiz began the interview by breaking down an at-bat during the World Series against eventual AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander.

"He was facing Verlander," Ortiz remembered of the Game 6 at-bat. "I'm right there in the studio narrating and watching everything ... I'm noticing the body language of this kid."

Ortiz goes on to recall the fourth pitch of the plate appearance, which was ruled a ball by home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook. "The catcher starts arguing with the umpire and during this argument Soto gets in the way and he said 'Tell him to throw it a bit lower and I'll show you where's the strike zone.'"

As fate would have it, the very next pitch was located in the top corner of the strike zone, according to the broadcast's pitch tracker, and Soto promptly sent it into the right-field seats for a home run. The young star then memorably brought his bat with him to first base in retaliation of Alex Bregman, who did the same thing earlier in the game.

Over his two seasons in the majors, Soto has posted a .287/.403/.535 slash line with 56 homers and 180 RBIs while finishing runner-up in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 and receiving down-ballot MVP votes last year.

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