Juan Soto continues to be one of the few reasons to turn on SNY every night.

While the Mets fell to 16 games under .500 and lost their 11th game in their last 13 games, Soto continued his MVP pace for the Mets.

The lefty slugger went 2-for-4 with a walk Friday in the Mets’ 5-3 loss to Atlanta, including clubbing his 18th homer of the season. Soto’s blast tied the game right after Christian Scott had allowed a two-run homer to Michael Harris II, upping his NL-leading OPS to .971.

Juan Soto by Berto Carlo

If the season ended today, Soto would lead the NL in multiple statistical categories. He currently leads the NL in OPS (.971), OBP (.406), and OPS+ (168). He’s also logged 139 total bases in just 69 games played.

All these lead to one question: Is Juan Soto worthy of the NL MVP? Well, he certainly is making the case.

He’s currently top ten in all slashline categories, is averaging a homer every 13.6 at-bats, and has accounted for 22.9% of all the Mets’ runs.

Of course the Mets’ position in the standings will be a contending argument against Soto winning the NL MVP. But the league has seen players win MVP awards for losing teams.

The most notable case of this was Andre Dawson in 1987. The righty won the NL MVP for the last-place Cubs, after clubbing a league-leading 49 homers with an .896 OPS. Alex Rodriguez also won an MVP for the last-place Rangers in 2003.

The other contending arguments will be players who are sizzling for pennant-chasing teams. The two leading cases being Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani.

Schwarber has a more intriguing case than Ohtani due to his home run prowess and the Phillies’ turnaround. The lefty currently leads the majors with 30 homers, the NL with a .570 slugging, and is second behind Soto with a .935 OPS. He’s also clubbed 19 homers the last two months as the Phillies are inching toward the Braves for first place in the NL East.

Then there’s obviously Ohtani, who continues to be a unicorn on the diamond. Not only is he slashing .288/.403/.524 with 18 homers, but he’s also pitching to a 1.79 ERA with a 10.0 K/9 through 14 starts. Yeah, the numbers speak for themselves.

But Soto deserves to be in the conversation as well. He’s put up the numbers previously stated, but also a 2.8bWAR. The offensive bWAR is more than Ohtani’s by 0.1 and more than Schwarber’s by 0.4. While the margin seems slim, it’s important to remember that Soto has played 12 less games than Ohtani and 15 less than Schwarber.

All being said, there are still 74 games left this season. What Soto does down the stretch will determine if he is able to keep pace or pull ahead of the other two for an MVP. But it’s worth noting now and paying attention, even if the Mets season is lost.