Francisco Lindor came to the plate for the first time on Saturday 0-for-his-last-11, and the rest of the offense wasn’t faring much better, having been held without a run on just four hits in the last two games.
But the shortstop gave the offense the jolt it needed in the first inning, taking a Joe Ross fastball the other way for a two-run homer to give the Mets a 2-0 lead. Lindor went on to add another RBI on a single before adding another two-run shot in the fifth, this time to right field. He knocked in all five Mets runs, the most RBI he’s had in a game since 2018.
“As soon as we scored the first runs, it just gives me, and I'm sure the rest of the team, a sense of relief,” Lindor said. “We're scoring early, now we've just got to continue to add on, especially in these seven-inning games.”
Lindor called himself a “gap-to-gap hitter” after the game, and he showcased that with his pair of home runs, one to each power alley.
“A power hitter to me is someone who hits 40, 45 home runs a year consistently,” Lindor said. “I can't really do that. I would love to be able to do that and maybe I could hit 40 in one year. But not consistently. A hitter who hits 25-30 a year, that's a gap-to-gap hitter. Going to all fields, that's me.”
But it was his first home run of the game, the one he sent to the opposite field, that Lindor was particularly happy with.
“The one the opposite way was more like I'm learning how to hit, because it was something that I wanted to do,” Lindor said. “I stayed through the ball and I hit it out. That's something that I'm trying to learn to do to be a better hitter. That was very satisfying. The second home run, that felt like Cleveland. I knew the pitch I wanted to hit, and I was short and quick to the baseball. But the first one, that's showing me that the work I'm putting in is working.”
Despite the big performance in the day game, Lindor is opting for the approach of never getting too high and never getting too low. He’ll be back in the batter’s box later tonight, after all, albeit on the other side of the plate.
“The best players in the game, you can't really tell if they're 0-for-20 or 5-for-5,” Lindor said. “You have to stay even keel. So that game's already done, now I have to focus on what's next. And I'm a completely different hitter, because I have to hit right-handed the next game. So let's see if that side works today too.”