Juan Soto Is Traveling Through Another Dimension, A Dimension Not Only Of Sight And Sound But Of Mind. A Journey Into A Wondrous Land Of Imagination. Next Stop, The Nats Zone!

May 15: Thunderstorms force the suspension of the Yankees/Nationals game after the top of the sixth inning, with the score 3-3.

May 16: The resumption of the suspended game and a regularly scheduled game are both postponed.

May 20: Juan Soto, a 19-year-old outfielder, makes his major league debut with the Nationals, striking out as a pinch-hitter.

May 21-June 17: Soto starts 22 games and hits .312/.404/.571 (.976 OPS), with five home runs.

June 18: The Yankees and Nationals continue the suspended game. In the bottom of the sixth, with one out and a man on, Soto crushes a two-run homer.

Juan Soto might have broken the space-time continuum. pic.twitter.com/A1sKseU6Dc

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) June 18, 2018

Pretty sure baseballs aren't supposed to land up there... Juan Soto doesn't care.

(via @Nationals) pic.twitter.com/xOFpzRCvKY

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) June 18, 2018

Soto's home run on June 18 is officially in the books as occurring on May 15.

Soto's debut will still be recognized as May 20.

Soto's June 18 home run will not (contrary to early reports and MLB's box score) be counted as his first major league home run. It will be his sixth.

That last item is almost beside the point. What is important here is that Juan Soto hit a major league home run five days "before" his major league debut.

(Somewhere, Jayson Stark is thinking, Well, the lead for my next Useless Information column just wrote itself.)

Whitney McIntosh (SB Nation):

Even better, Soto was now technically in two places at the same time according to the official baseball record. On May 15th, he was going 3-for-4 with Double A Harrisburg ... in a game against the Bowie Baysox.

Juan Soto 5/15/18: 3-for-4 in AA

Also Juan Soto 5/15/18: 1-for-2 with an @MLB HR pic.twitter.com/GNapA96Aih

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) June 18, 2018

Jamal Collier (MLB.com), on a few unusual and quirky non-Soto aspects to this game:

Tyler Austin is responsible for driving in all three Yankees runs, but he began the day [June 18] in Triple-A. Adam Eaton made a pinch-hitting appearance, even though it began five days after he had undergone ankle surgery. Greg Bird was playing in a Minor League rehab assignment at this time.

Soto's situation is not unprecedented. ESPN notes that Dave Parker (1973) and Barry Bonds (1986) are among the players who recorded hits in the continuation of games that began prior to their debuts.

Collier tweeted about Bonds: "MLB debut came on May 30, but had an RBI single in the bottom of the 17th on April 20 (completed Aug. 11)."

It also happened to Andrew Susac in 2014. He debuted on July 26 and on September 1, he played in a suspended game from May 22. His hit in the suspended game came more than two months before his debut.