It was odd that Francisco Lindor wasn’t in the Mets’ starting lineup on Saturday.
Lindor has started in every game since last June -- when he missed a couple of games due to hurting his fingers on double doors in his Los Angeles hotel room -- but he had a great reason for not being penciled in against the Cardinals: the birth of his second child.
"It's such a beautiful journey. It's one of the coolest processes in the world,” Lindor said after the Mets’ 5-3 loss. “Hats off to all the moms out there. It's incredible what they do.”
When asked about being a “girl dad,” Lindor said, “It’s the best. They’re the future, the future is female.”
The Lindors welcomed a baby girl Saturday morning and although the 29-year-old was willing to play Saturday, manager Buck Showalter told him to sit this one out.
“When my baby girl was born at 5:30 in the morning I knew I had a chance to be in the lineup,” Lindor said. “I want to be here but I told Buck, whatever’s best for the team. He said I needed to rest and that’s why I didn’t start.”
Lindor said he had about 2-3 hours of sleep before he arrived at Citi Field prior to the game. When he found out he wasn’t starting, the shortstop ate and took a nap, which is why he wasn’t visible in the Mets dugout until the middle of the game.
In his stead, Luis Guillorme started at shortstop and the historically light-hitting utility man gave the Mets everything he had at the plate. Not only did he hit a two-run homer to cut the Cardinals lead to 4-3, at the time, he also hit a double in the later innings that gave his team a chance to tie it up.
“Loved it. It’s that next-man mentality that we’ve been trying to get,” Lindor said of Guillorme’s performance Saturday. “He came in today not knowing he was going to start, he got the opportunity and he made the best out of it. He gave us a chance to win today.”
That was Guillorme’s first home run of the season and it gave the Mets a spark offensively that Lindor has been unable to give on a consistent basis this season. Although Lindor did pinch-hit in the ninth of Saturday’s loss, where he did get on base after being hit by a pitch, the perennial All-Star has been anything but this year.
In 2023, Lindor is hitting just .211 with an OBP of .291. He does have 12 home runs -- tops among NL shortstops -- and 44 RBI, which is 11th in the senior circuit, but he hasn’t been able to bring that production every day. And with Pete Alonso out of the lineup, the Mets need all the offense they can get.
Saturday’s loss was the team’s seventh in their last 10 games and they now sit at 33-37 and 4.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. But Lindor continues to see the potential of this team and believes they can get out of it.
“Losing is always hard. And a loss weighs the same, whether it’s this year, last year it weighs the same,” Lindor explained. “At some point we’re going to turn it around. The last couple of games we played well. They scored more runs than us and we just ran out of innings. One of the good things about this stretch, most of the games we’re in it … we’ve given ourselves a chance to win ball games, we just have to make sure in the ninth, [David] Robertson comes in to close the game.”
Showalter expects Lindor to be back in the starting lineup Sunday, but has plans if the shortstop can’t. With or without Lindor, the Mets will look to win the series against St. Louis, which will be their first series win since their three-game sweep of the Phillies from May 30-June 1.