| Is it too soon to call them Juan Soto's Yankees?
Sure, it was merely four days in March. Soto hasn't even donned the pinstripes or heard a roll call in The Bronx. Forget October — by this time in June, we could be talking about some untold downturn or, who knows, Giancarlo Stanton's pursuit of Barry Bonds' 73 homers. A baseball season is Homeric in scope; Yankees icons, like giant sequoias, are measured in decades and rings.
But check out what Soto did in those four days, comprising an adrenaline-shot road sweep of the hated Astros, the very "dragon" the Yankees have repeatedly failed to slay in recent years:
• On Opening Day on Thursday, he drove in the Yankees' first run as they rallied from a 4-0 deficit, and threw out the potential game-tying run at the plate in the ninth inning.
• On Friday, during a three-hit day, he drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh inning of another come-from-behind win by drawing a walk with his trademark keen eye.
• On Saturday, he lasered an opposite-field home run into the Crawford Boxes for yet another seventh-inning go-ahead RBI.
 Juan Soto drives in the winning run with a single off the Astros' Josh Hader in Sunday's 4-3 Yankees victory.
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• On Sunday, facing Astros closer Josh Hader — about as tough a left-on-left at-bat as exists in the known galaxy — in the ninth inning of a tie game, he put the Yankees on top with a line-drive single.
"You feel good when he's up there," left fielder Alex Verdugo said after the 4-3 victory. "He's really special. It doesn't matter lefty [or] righty, the way he controls the zone, knows himself and doesn't let the moment get too big. …
"Dawg. Just put it like that: He's a dawg, bro. I can't say nothing else. We're dawgs out here."
If these are indeed a different species of Yankees from the outfit that rolled over and showed their bellies in a toothless 2023, it was Soto at the head of the pack during the team's best start in 21 years.
He went 9-for-17 with three walks — that's reaching base 12 times in 20 tries, to be clear — and two strikeouts in the four games in Houston.
His approach at the plate even appeared to filter down the lineup to the likes of Oswaldo Cabrera (7-for-16, two homers) and Anthony Volpe (4-for-10 with four walks, before missing Sunday's series finale due to a stomach illness).
 Oswaldo Cabrera is greeted by Juan Soto (22) after a home run during the Yankees' win on Opening Day.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post
Aaron Boone said earlier in the week it "probably still remains to be seen" what kind of leadership mantle and vocal role Soto, a newcomer who isn't signed beyond this season, would take alongside incumbent presences such as captain Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo and Stanton.
"My message to him is it's his clubhouse too, and we want to learn and grow from you and want you to feel empowered to say and do whatever you feel like you need to do," Boone said. "I've tried to send that message. Anytime you're a player coming over to a team for the first time, I'm sure you're toeing the water a little bit and getting a feel for everything."
It's Big Apples to oranges, but you know, Soto wasn't the first 25-year-old lefty to arrive in New York recently to a team in need of a spiritual swing.
Jalen Brunson wasn't the unquestioned alpha when he joined the Knicks in 2022 for a $104 million check and the eventual cost of a tampering-penalty draft pick. It wasn't until December or January of that first season when that tag really swished home.
Now that he's dealing in nightly heroics — 61 points in Friday's overtime loss to the Spurs and a would-be game-winner that got one-upped in Sunday's loss to the Thunder — and basking in unfettered adoration from the Garden crowds, it's difficult to remember the Knicks were ever anything other than Jalen Brunson's Team.
 Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson reacts after making a 3-pointer on Sunday — and the Madison Square Garden crowd loves it.
Robert Sabo for the NY Post
The zeroes on Brunson's next contract (read the last note in Stefan Bondy's Inside the Knicks newsletter) are now a matter of civic responsibility.
If it took Brunson four months, surely it's going to require more than four days for Soto to assume a similar significance for the Yankees, especially in Judge's lofty shadow.
And of course there's the question of the zeroes on his next contract. The price of the bat, to borrow from Baltimore's Marlo Stanfield, is going up.
As introductions go, though, across four exhilarating showdowns in Houston, there wasn't a single thing Soto could have done better: in the win-loss column, at the plate, with the glove, in the clutch and — most ineffably and perhaps most importantly, in the realm of vibes where dogs become dawgs — in supplying a sense that these Yankees may go as far as he can take them.
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Game of the year? Cancel your plans.
On Monday night, we get what could be the best matchup of this college basketball season and is certainly the juiciest: Caitlin Clark and Iowa vs. Angel Reese and LSU for a berth in the Final Four (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Their meeting in last season's title game, won by LSU, set a women's basketball viewership record. If this rematch doesn't top it — on cable, on a weekday — it will come close. They're toasting to this gift of the brackets in Bristol. It's major box office.
 The record-setting Caitlin Clark will try to lead back Iowa back to the Final Four when they meet LSU on Monday night.
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And there would be a certain tidiness to Iowa winning, to Clark going on to win a national championship as the final legendary feat in the most discussed individual career in the sport's history.
But I wonder about what would be lost with an Iowa win and the further concentration of narrative eggs in Clark's basket.
Because what happens next season? What promotes the continued growth of women's college basketball — beyond such indignities as this fiasco of wrong 3-point lines — once Clark takes her tantalizing talents to the WNBA?
There are other incandescent players and compelling plotlines that could get a head start on commanding sports fans' attention.
 Angel Reese and LSU are three wins away from claiming back-to-back national championships.
USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
LSU is rich with them: the unabashed Reese and Flau'jae Johnson (lately emerged as the Tigers' best player), the wackadoo head coach Kim Mulkey calling out newspaper coverage as readily as defensive coverages, their heated rivalry with South Carolina (a potential opponent in the final), their bid for a repeat title (why is the tenor of their attempt to go back-to-back so different from the awe afforded to UConn on the men's side? Is it really just the margins of victory?).
Hailey Van Lith put a word (it only takes one) to some of the discourse surrounding LSU and by extension Iowa, their star players and their respective influences on women's basketball. There's enough in Monday night's duel to float an entire sociology department.
And there's so much more to look forward to: Dawn Staley's nonpareil program-building with undefeated South Carolina; USC freshman JuJu Watkins, three wins from a "Melo"; the electric Paige Bueckers, who vowed to return in 2024-25, trying to lift UConn past USC (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) and back to the Final Four; USC and UCLA (which nearly toppled LSU) en route to the Big Ten; a superlative freshman class that also includes Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, Texas' Madison Booker and South Carolina's MiLaysia Fulwiley returning as sophomores.
 USC's JuJu Watkins is a breathtaking talent in her own right.
USA TODAY Sports
The marketers and network programmers attached to maintaining the upward trajectory of women's college basketball have no shortage of non-Clark material.
And they're going to have to start using it — whether that's Tuesday morning or next week, after the Iowa superstar has climbed the ladder and cut down two more nets.
At least one pitch had purpose When the thing the Mets did most effectively in a season-opening three-game series against the Brewers at Citi Field was get mad at Rhys Hoskins, it's no wonder they wake up Monday morning at 0-3, one of four winless teams in the majors (joining the aforementioned Astros and the not-really-trying White Sox and Marlins).
It started in an otherwise sleepy Opening Day loss on Friday, when Jeff McNeil took exception to Hoskins' late slide through second base to break up a double play and the benches (tepidly) cleared.
In Saturday's defeat, after Hoskins had notched three hits (including a homer) and four RBIs against starter Luis Severino, Mets reliever Yohan Ramirez threw a pitch behind Hoskins' head.
 Mets reliever Yohan Ramirez exchanges words with the Brewers' Rhys Hoskins during Saturday's loss on Citi Field.
Bill Kostroun for the NY Post
"I was trying to throw my sinker inside," Ramirez said.
"Big leaguers don't miss by 8 feet," Hoskins said.
"It's too late to throw at a guy after he's beaten your brains in," SNY's Ron Darling said.
On Sunday, still active while appealing his three-game suspension for the incident, Ramirez got another crack at Hoskins with the bases loaded and struck him out.
The crowd cheered — what else did they have? The punchout kept the Mets' deficit at 3-1 in an eventual 4-1 loss.
Carlos Mendoza, who served a one-game ban Sunday, has more games suspended as a manager than games won. McNeil (1-for-11) has as many tantrums as hits.
 Jeff McNeil was among several Mets who struggled at the plate in the team's season-opening sweep.
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The Mets hit .202 as a team. Severino, Jose Quintana and Tylor Megill (who then underwent an MRI exam on his shoulder) combined for a 5.93 ERA and zero pitches thrown beyond the fifth inning.
Anyway, remember 2019? The Mets, under .500 for much of May through July, finished three games out of a playoff spot. They had Jacob deGrom earning a Cy Young and rookie Pete Alonso bashing 53 homers. And they had Jacob Rhame.
On April 23, 2019, Rhame threw two pitches over a Phillies hitter's head. The next day, he faced the same guy, who took Rhame deep and took his sweet time rounding the bases. Rhame pitched three more innings that season and hasn't appeared in the big leagues since.
That Phillies slugger's name? Rhys Hoskins.
What we're reading 👀 🏀 OG Anunoby, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson (again) are on the sideline and the Knicks are clinging to fourth place with eight games left. "It's always been assumed time was on the Knicks' side. Not so much now," writes The Post's Mike Vaccaro.
🏒 With the Rangers in reach of the Presidents' Trophy, The Post's Larry Brooks looks ahead to this summer's restricted free agency for heart-and-soul defenseman Ryan Lindgren.
🏀 DJ Burns Jr. and Cinderella NC State knocked off Duke to advance to face Zach Edey's Purdue in the men's Final Four.
🏀 LeBron James shot the lights out against the Nets. King stuff.
🏈 Dallas police were searching for Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice after he was suspected to be involved in a car-race crash that injured four people.
🎾 Danielle Collins with the title of her career, months before it ends.
⚽ Liverpool is in the driver's seat of a scintillating three-team Premier League race after Arsenal played Manchester City to a 0-0 draw.
⛳ Nelly Korda never loses these days.
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