Mets success continues to hinge on Francisco Lindor as star breaks out of slump
Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.PHILADELPHIA — It is just about inarguable at this point.
As Francisco Lindor goes, so go the Mets. During the seven-game losing streak, the reliable and likely All-Star shortstop went 3-for-26, including entering play Saturday in an 0-for-18 slump. That skid was gone by Saturday’s third inning, when Lindor jumped on what would be the first of three consecutive Mets home runs. After an 11-4 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park was secured, that home run meant the Mets have won the past 28 games in which Lindor has homered, just one shy of the all-time MLB record established by Carl Furillo from 1951-53. The equation might be as simple as this: When Lindor is playing well, the Mets win. And so the Mets won and Lindor played well, brushing aside concerns about his broken pinkie toe and lugging the team on his back once more. Lindor finished 2-for-5 with one of the Mets’ seven home runs, a double and three RBIs, most importantly jump-starting the Mets’ comeback in the third. Down 3-1 entering the frame — an early hole the team had become accustomed to during the tailspin — Lindor stepped into a full-count four-seamer from righty Mick Abel and crushed it to the deepest part of Citizens Bank Park, 406 feet to left-center.Following their leader, Brandon Nimmo and Juan Soto then added blasts of their own to become the first Mets to go back-to-back-to-back since Nimmo, Lindor and Jeff McNeil did it in 2022. His damage done from the left side of the plate, Lindor turned around against lefty Tanner Banks in the sixth.
With the Mets clinging to a one-run edge and two on base, Lindor snuck a double off the wall in the right-field corner, scoring two to put the Mets ahead, 7-4, and perhaps allow his team to breathe again. Lindor did not play like an athlete who broke his right pinkie toe just two and a half we...