Juan Soto told reporters Monday he has zero regrets pushing through left calf pain before a Grade 2 strain landed him on the IL. His interim manager quietly left the door open on whether the Mets moved fast enough.

Juan Soto was asked Monday whether he regrets trying to play through a calf that turned out to be a Grade 2 strain. His answer was immediate.

"I don't," he said before the Mets' game against Atlanta at Citi Field. "I'm trying to go out there and help my team to win ballgames. Whatever it takes. Sometimes it's tough. We were hoping it would go the other way, and I [would get] better and healthier and keep going, but it didn't."

He'd been grinding on it for a week. He sat out a game against Milwaukee. He DHed in two others to spare the calf. On July 24, running the bases in a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers, it gave out. An MRI the next morning confirmed a Grade 2 left calf strain — more severe than the right calf injury that cost him 15 games in April, and closer in kind to the one that shelved Francisco Lindor for nine weeks. Soto was placed on the injured list July 25. Grade 2 strains typically take at least a month.

"We were expecting something from the MRI because I was going through it a lot," Soto said. "I was in a lot of pain, but I kept pushing."

Interim manager Andy Green chose his words more carefully. "Is it possible we could've looked back and moved a little bit quicker on this given where we're at today? Yes," he said Saturday after the IL move was announced. "I don't know that that ultimately changes the situation we're in right now."

That hedge is the quiet admission underneath Soto's resolve. The $765 million man — posting a .947 OPS, MLB's third-best, with 21 home runs and the NL's highest on-base percentage at .404 — kept suiting up for a team now on pace for 95 losses, the franchise's worst since 2003. He says he's 100 percent coming back this season. What he can't say yet is when.

There's something pure and somewhat maddening about Soto's answer. He was burning himself down for a Mets team that was already burning. But that's also precisely who he is.