Things weren’t looking so hot for the Mets during Wednesday afternoon’s series finale against the Toronto Blue Jays, but as has been the case over the past few months, they somehow found a way to get the job done.
Toronto righty Bowden Francis was just three outs away from putting together a no-hitter after cruising through the struggling New York offense over the first eight innings, but then Francisco Lindor stepped to the plate.
Leading off the ninth, the superstar shortstop dug in and after falling behind 0-2 in the count, he demolished a monstrous solo home run to deep right field, which knocked Francis out of the game and broke up the no-hitter.
“MVP,” manager Carlos Mendoza said postgame. “On a night where we were about to get no-hit, for him to put together that at-bat and to come through in a situation where we needed it the most, it just got us going. He’s a special player, special person, and like I said an MVP.”
It certainly did get the Mets going, as they went on to score five more times in the inning, capped off by Francisco Alvarez’s three-run homer, before the bullpen closed out the thrilling come-from-behind victory.
“That felt really good,” Lindor said. “It was one of those hits where I could tell the vibes in the dugout were just lifted. Iggy [Jose Iglesias] said to me, [Mark] Vientos, and Pete [Alonso] during the pitching change, let’s just give it everything we got here so that’s what we did.
“Hats off to [Bowden] Francis, he executed his pitches all day and pitched extremely well, everything was going his way until the last pitch he threw.”
Lindor's been having a bit of a rough time at the plate like the rest of the Mets’ offense lately, but Wednesday’s game-tying homer was just the latest of many big moments for him in what’s been an MVP-caliber season.
With one swing of the bat, what seemed destined to be a disappointing series loss to open the road trip quickly turned into one of the best wins of the season heading into a massive weekend series with the Phillies.
New York has now won 11 of their last 13 games heading into the final stretch of the season and they sit 0.5 game ahead of the Atlanta Braves for the last Wild Card spot (pending Wednesday's result).
“We’re feeling good,” the skipper said. “We won the series here against some good pitching, we have the off day tomorrow, and know what is ahead of us. Philadelphia is a really good team, but we're going to enjoy today and tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go on Friday.”