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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Juan Soto sat on the red leather couch and beamed. He looked around and spied Anthony Rendon in one corner of the clubhouse, Max Scherzer in another, Stephen Strasburg over here, Ryan Zimmerman over there and…

"It's really amazing to be here on this team right now," he said.

So pick one:    

A) This was a scene following his World Series debut in Game 1, when the kid dubbed "Childish Bambino" absolutely annihilated a solo homer off Astros ace Gerrit Cole, roped a two-run double and picked up a single, scoring a three-RBI night while becoming only the fourth different player to homer in a Fall Classic before his 21st birthday—joining Miguel Cabrera (2003), Andruw Jones (1996) and Mickey Mantle (1952).

B) It was after Game 2, when Soto seared a double off Justin Verlander, convinced the Astros to do something they had never done this season—issue an intentional walk, which practically made those who have watched the Astros all season do spit takes on the spot—and tied Cabrera for the most postseason extra-base hits (six) in history by a player younger than 21.

C) It was early this spring, in February, before the Nationals had played a single Grapefruit League game.

If you answered C, step right up onto the Juan Soto Express.

And please make it quick, because this guy doesn't stay in one place very long and his autumn has "Breakout Star" stamped all over it.

Amazing barely begins to cover it, and not just because the Nationals, the biggest World Series underdogs since the 2007 Rockies, have leapt to a 2-0 series lead.

No, amazing barely begins to cover it because when you take measure of Soto's meteoric rise, it has been so steep and so fast that you might want to take an altitude-sickness pill before trying to assimilate.

Soto was speaking with wonder on that February day because he was starting his very first major league spring training camp. Signed as an amateur free agent in July 2015, Soto zipped through the minors in just two summers before the Nationals, in need of help following a rash of injuries, summoned him to the majors at 19 in May 2018.

It was going to be a temporary assignment.

Then the slugging started.

"It's amazing," Nationals ace Max Scherzer says, and there's that word again. "He came onto the scene and just hit the ground running. He continues to show his energy for the game, how he competes every pitch, and his plate discipline is as good as anybody's in the league. He's a special type of player. It's going to be fun to watch his maturation process and how the league continues to adjust to him."

This, too, was spoken in February, before Soto even had a full major league season on the books.

And just look at how the league continues to "adjust" to him.

The homer against Cole on Tuesday night never freaking came down. Seriously. The Astros star, who hadn't lost a game since May 22, left a 96 mph fastball up over the outer third of the plate in the fourth inning, and the lefty-swinging Soto reached out and demolished it to the opposite field, so soaring and so deep that it disappeared over the train that rumbles high above left field in Minute Maid Park.

A couple of Astros high-wire artists did a solid for the National Baseball Hall of Fame when the game was over, climbing up into the rafters somewhere to retrieve the historic memento for future display.

"Geez, man," Nationals co-closer Sean Doolittle says. "It's like he wants to get a couple of more home runs and extra-base hits before he turns 21 just so he can have some more records at 20."

Maybe that's why he's in such a rush. A few weeks ago, all casual baseball fans knew of Soto was likely that he'd been hyped as the future of the Nationals offense during Bryce Harper's lengthy departure and that he does that unique staredown of pitchers during at-bats. And now? Get this: When the curtain rises on Game 3 on Friday night, the World Series will be making its first appearance in the District of Columbia since 1933…and it just so happens to fall on Soto's 21st birthday.

Everything is going the Birthday Boy's way.

Smashing jaw-dropping home runs is far from Soto's only skill, but it absolutely is one of his most prodigious ones.

Know what this kid was doing a mere 11 months ago? He was part of an MLB All-Star team tour of Japan that doubled as his very own, very personal study abroad program.

He was launching moonshots there, too.

During one game, Soto swatted a ball so hard that it hit the Tokyo Dome ceiling above the part of the field where the turf meets the right field fence, high above the warning track.

As Boston Red Sox reliever and fellow tour-mate Brian Johnson tells it, the ball dropped straight down after clanging off the roof and was caught for an out.

"We all kind of looked at each other like, 'Where's that ball end up if it doesn't hit the roof?'" Johnson says. "It hits the very last part of the Dome and breaks through it?

"He's incredible."

And he was the baby of the team. During the six games there, his education continued every day, both on the field and away from it.

What did Soto learn?

"To be more of a teammate," he says. "Know what you have to do in tough situations. I learned to play more situational. How to play aggressive. How to control my emotions in front of loud fans."

He found he liked everything about Japan during the whirlwind trip, from the baseball to the culture.

"Better than I thought," he says. "I liked the sushi. It was really good. I ate it all. I eat sushi here and I don't know—it doesn't taste the same."

His favorite moments, he says, were when the players went out walking around as a team, sightseeing. The Tokyo Tower, he says, was a particularly fun stop.

What really left an impression on him, though, was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. There, among other things, he saw shadow boxes displaying clothes that were torn and burnt, keys and other scraps that were retrieved from the victims and later housed in the museum dedicated to documenting the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.

"That was a first for me," Soto says. "I've never seen that. That was a little bit sad.

"I feel sad for it. When I get in there, it was hard to see."

Among Soto's teammates on the trip were St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina, who has developed into a father figure in his life, and Cleveland slugger Carlos Santana. He singles them out as especially good mentors.

"He's the greatest," Soto says of Molina. "He's really good. And I'm young. I have to learn from everybody."

Not only is that humility one of his most endearing and essential qualities, but it is baked into the mix that has helped the precocious superstar ascend this October as if he were the Great Pumpkin himself.

"I got feedback [from the Japan trip], and everybody said nothing but really wonderful things about not just him as baseball player, but about what kind of person he is," Nationals manager Davey Martinez says. "That means a lot not just to me, but to his teammates as well."

Says Scherzer: "He gets it. He understands. He shows respect for the veterans, respect in the clubhouse. He's not an ego guy. You can tell he wants to play for the team and he wants to learn. He wants people to show him the way, how to play the game the best way and how to play it right.

"There's little flaws in his game. That's what I respect most about him, his desire to learn the game and his desire to be coachable. Not every player plays the game that way, and that's why I love having him on our team."

So what happened between Japan and this season? Believe it or not, the Nationals told Soto to cool it.

True story: He wanted to move right from last major league season to the Japan tour to winter ball in his native Dominican Republic. But that wasn't exactly the blueprint the Nationals had in mind.

"He played more than he ever played last year," Martinez says. "For me, it was wonderful he got to experience going to Japan, but after that we said, 'Hey, you're done.'"

So he worked out in Santo Domingo with a couple of friends who were minor leaguers, experienced his first big league spring training, hit .282/.401/.548 with 34 homers and 110 RBI in his first full MLB season and now astoundingly is treating the two American League Cy Young favorites, Cole and Verlander, as if they are his own personal speed bags.

The game-tying homer off Cole that erased the only lead the Astros have held in this series?

"I'm glad I faced him in spring training, too," Soto says. "So I know how the ball is going to be, how high it's going to be, the curveball, the slider, everything.

"And I got the [scouting] report. He throws a lot of fastballs. He likes to throw the fastball. I just sit there and waited for the fastball."

Around the clubhouse in Houston, the Nationals weren't so much amazed as they were expressing a solo Soto fact: Hey, knuckleheads, this is what we've witnessed all summer. Where has everybody been?

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

"He always goes to the plate to fight," infielder Asdrubal Cabrera says, adding after Game 1, "It seems like he was here before."

Says left-hander Patrick Corbin: "No moment is too big for that guy."

So far, the only World Series moment he's had in which he didn't appear beyond his years came in his very first at-bat in the first inning of Game 1. That was the only time in these two games, he admits, "that I get a little nervous."

Cole struck him out on three straight fastballs: He swung through a 97 mph heater for strike one, took a called 98 mph fastball for strike two and then swung through 99 mph cheese for strike three. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight.

"After I strike out I say, 'Hey, it's just another game. It's just another way to play baseball,'" he says.

Next time up, ka-boom!

At 20 years and 362 days in Game 1, Soto became the second-youngest cleanup hitter in a World Series game in the past 100 years, after Cabrera (20 years and 183 days in 2003).

In six World Series at-bats so far, Soto has crushed the homer to left-center, smashed the double off the left field wall, punched the single up the middle and driven the other double into the right field corner. Talk about hitting to all fields, and on the grandest stage against the best pitching. It's like he's immersed in his own game of around-the-world.

His other secrets to dealing with pressure: breathe deeply, focus and, sometimes, pop some gum into his mouth. Chomp!

"He's so poised and calm you can't say enough about him," shortstop Trea Turner says.

A D.C. television guy egged him on in the clubhouse late Wednesday night until Soto agreed that, yes, why not, it would be very nice if the Nationals Park crowd sang a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" to him Friday night. And, hey, why not? Right now, life is just one big party for Soto and the red-hot Nationals, who have taken to holding quick clubhouse dances after each victory.

"I don't know what it is," he says of the music, "but it makes everybody jump."

So, too, does Soto. And what he's really eager for this weekend, he says—picking up on the Nationals' ongoing "Stay in the Fight" theme—is "finishing the fight."

"We've been working a lot for this since the first day. It's been amazing. Right now, we're trying to finish this and win it all."

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

As he talked, there were Scherzer and Strasburg down the row of lockers, Rendon across the room, Zimmerman over there…and the chaos of the media horde, suitcases, dirty towels and a plane ride back home all around them. If it was amazing to be with these guys on a quiet afternoon in February, what the heck is it like now, just two wins away from seizing D.C.'s first World Series title since 1924?

"It's a blast for me and my teammates," he says. "Everything is going our way.

"We beat everyone in the National League. And now, we have to win two more games [at home]. It feels really good right now."

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.