WASHINGTON -- When Juan Soto gathered his glove and bats to head up to the clubhouse following the Nationals’ May 16 win, his average barked back at .228.

Soto never came close to such depths last season. A late-August lull dragged him under .300, but prompted one of the quips of the year when he began to pull his average back up. Soto explained he was simply doing “Juan Soto things” in the process.

This year’s ugly numbers sent Soto to the batting cages, six steps down and to the left from the Nationals clubhouse. Music plays in there and hitting coach Kevin Long is omnipresent in a red T-shirt with days’ worth of growth on his face.

Inside, Soto hunted for enhancement and remedy. His average dip was a byproduct of the league’s new attack and his reaction to it. Two glaring numbers jumped out year-over-year: Soto’s contact percentage on pitches outside of the strike zone had dropped by more than five percent. Pitchers were throwing him even fewer fastballs. The latter caused the former.

Soto has been swinging more often at pitches in the strike zone in 2019 than during his diligent and disciplined rookie season. So, that was not a problem. But, he was missing the ones off the plate -- key swings which produced fall balls or maybe even an opposite-field hit in the past. Those swings and misses came from an adjustment Soto made to the league’s adjustment. They threw him off-speed pitches 55.5 percent of the time. Pitches he needs to stay back on. He did. Too much.

Trying to find a way to handle all the bends and lack of pace, Soto was resting back on his left leg. His hips slipped toward the home plate umpire. His power was stumped by the lack of balance. His ability to reach those outside off-speed pitches -- to spoil, punch or flick -- evaporated because he could not get there. Eventually, .228 showed up, Soto looked for answers and Long put a strap around Soto’s waist then tethered him to the back of the cage.

If Soto went too far back when he loaded his swing, the harness would pull him further, knocking him off-balance. He began to settle into a centered position, “50-50 in my legs,” he said, instead of his backward lean.

“It’s to kind of get his energy into the ground,” Long told NBC Sports Washington. "He was going back and he was staying there and never getting back to center. What that has done, it’s gotten him to feel, because we hold that thing back, if he goes like this (leans back), we’ll actually pull him all the way back. What it’s doing is it’s stopping him from doing that, it’s keeping him centered and keeping his head still and it’s helped him quite a bit.”

Soto added the strap to his normal hitting routine: Tee middle, tee away, tee in, back to the middle with the tee. He also works his beloved knob sequence, where Soto uses the knob of the bat to contact balls flipped to him and strike them straight down, in the same spray-chart manner of out, in and middle. He started the drill his first year as a professional. Traditional flips and on-field batting practice follow.

He added the harness to most of that work. Results followed. A 2-for-4 day came after the May 16 low point and kicked off a career-high 11-game hitting streak (he twice hit in 10 consecutive games during his rookie season). Soto’s average shot up 60 points in 10 days. The calendar -- early enough such a massive swing could occur -- and six multi-hit games helped.

Soto also fought to swing too hard. This, at times, is referred as to getting “too big” for players when they pursue homers over straight hard contact. New York Mets announcer Keith Hernandez explained Soto’s early season issues well by saying “he’s not a home run hitter” but rather a line-drive hitter. Think Joey Gallo vs. Albert Pujols in approach. An unfair audio chop of Hernandez’s comments hit, and spread on, social media, but his point was well-taken from the Nationals’ perspective.

“We’ve always kind of fought him on that a little bit,” Long said. “Call him Juan Cito, suave-a-cito, which means the easier he swings, the more efficient his swing is. But a lot of that was just because he was too far back. When you swing like that, you’re upper body kind of takes over. So, it was kind of compounded by the issues of being back too far.”

Soto is on-point now. Patience has combined with balance to move Soto back into the space expected and shown in his rookie season. He’s doing this all from left field again, though he works out at first base on occasion. Why? Because manager Davey Martinez wants to give him a break, because you never know what a double-switch might force, and because it’s where Soto could play -- way, way, way into the future.

“I can’t see why later on in his future why he couldn’t, but right now, he’s our left fielder,” Martinez said.

Soto’s position is a curiosity for the Nationals because of their forthcoming first base situation. Ryan Zimmerman’s $18 million option will not be picked up (which doesn’t rule out a salary-tempered return). Howie Kendrick will be a free agent. The team and Matt Adams share a mutual contact option. So, can Soto move to first?

“I never think of that position,” Soto told NBC Sports Washington. “I don’t like it. I don’t like to be there so close to the lefty hitter and pull the ball to me. I like to be in left field.

“But [Tim] Bogar, he was telling me, ‘Hey, you have to be ready for everything. You never know.’ Maybe a double switch they will have to put me out of the lineup (instead of first). ...I don’t want to come out of the game, so that’s why I keep working there and take a couple ground balls.”

For now, and the near future, Soto is in left field. He’s busy enjoying his second season, which is just picking up thanks to a harness and extra work.

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