One of baseball’s biggest letdowns in 2023 has been the San Diego Padres. The Padres will not make the postseason in 2023 despite having a roster full of stars like Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Xander Bogaerts and having Yu Darvish and Blake Snell at the head of their rotation. However, this hasn’t been for want of effort on Soto’s part; the 24-year-old left fielder is still doing everything he can at the plate to help the struggling Padres.

Soto gave the Padres a first-inning lead with his 30th home run of the season, a long ball to right field off Los Angeles Dodgers starter Ryan Pepiot. In doing so, Soto became one of only three players in Padres history to accomplish this feat, highlighting the importance of his contributions to the team’s success despite the team’s disappointing season.

Juan Soto, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com reports, joined Adrian Gonzalez (2009) and Fred McGriff (1991) as the only Padres players to record 30 home runs and 100 walks in the same season.

Both Gonzalez and McGriff are powerful first basemen who caused havoc for pitchers with their consistent ability to produce strong at-bats, but they play a far easier defensive position on the diamond. For the Padres, this means Juan Soto is in the outfield, though it’s not out of the question that they’ll need to reposition him soon due to his poor defensive statistics.

As the headline of the article implies, it is also a tremendous accomplishment for Soto to leave his mark on Padres lore that Padres legend Tony Gwynn never even came close to. Gwynn, on the other hand, possessed a unique set of abilities. His bat-to-ball skills were nearly unmatched, allowing him to hit for a high average despite his lack of power. His career highs in home runs were 17 in 1997 and walks were 108 in 1987 (82 of which were accidental).

Juan Soto, who has one more year of team control, might become the first Padres player in history to have back-to-back seasons of 30+ home runs and 100+ walks (not including intentional ones).