Open Now
Open Now
Watch now

Mets’ Francisco Lindor shows first sign of ending ugly slump

Shortstop Francisco Lindor finally broke out of an 0-for-26 slump with a single against the Cardinals on Thursday afternoon as the Mets took the series finale.

More from:

Mike Vaccaro

Giancarlo Stanton's insane stretch offers hope for Francisco Lindor

James Dolan bloodbath a harsh reminder for Rangers, Knicks

The two sides of Nets' Steve Nash as playoffs loom

We've never seen anything like Derrick Rose's second Knicks act

Yankees' 2017 loss to Astros one of NY baseball’s biggest what-ifs

What is it like to be in a batting slump? We think we know. We don’t know, most of us. We do not walk in their shoes. We have never experienced the high of hitting a 97-mph fastball on the screws, seeing it fly over a distance fence. So we cannot know the low of an 0-for-26 skid. So I asked Francisco Lindor that very question Thursday afternoon.

What is it like to be in a batting slump?

“Mike,” he said, “it sucks.”

He was smiling, of course, because even as things have gotten dreadful and dismal these past few weeks Lindor kept smiling. Some thought that was a good thing to see: better a smile than a scowl, right?

Others reacted the way Gunnery Sergeant Hartman did when Private Pyle kept smiling at the start of “Full Metal Jacket”: “WIPE THAT DISGUSTING GRIN OFF YOUR FACE!!

The smile, no surprise, was camouflage.

“My shoulders,” Lindor admitted, “were down above my ears.”

Lindor had a good day Thursday. He walked three times, on a day when the Mets took full advantage of the Cardinals’ largesse and walked 11 times in total, three times with the bases loaded in a 4-1 win that split a four-game series in St. Louis and sends them back home to Citi Field this weekend off a winning 4-3 road trip, as improbable as that seems.

Francisco Lindor reacts after recording a single on Thursday afternoon against the Cardinals.
Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

He also snuck a hard ground ball through the right side of the infield with two outs in the top of the ninth, a clean single that snapped an 0-for-26 slide that fell one short of his career-worst 0-fer. The Mets dugout reacted with glee, waving at Lindor. Lindor waved back. He was happy but he is still hitting .163. He wasn’t about to celebrate.

“As soon as I hit the ball I was just hoping nobody would catch it,” he said. “I’m still hitting about point-20 with men on base. That’s still not good.”

But it is a start, and it was a life-raft out of the quicksand. What is it like to be in a batting slump? It is actually the kind of question perfect for obsessives like big-league hitters, who spend so much time trying to figure out this mysterious craft of theirs. Derek Jeter famously went 0-for-32 in April of 2004. He was sitting at .161 when he led off a game in Oakland with a home run off Barry Zito.

“The way things were going, I figured it might hit a bird on the way out,” Jeter said in what had to be one of the two or three funniest things he’s ever said. Jeter, for the record, finished that season at .292/.352/.471 and finished 13th in the MVP vote.

The most famous slump in New York’s baseball history belonged to Gil Hodges, who went 0-for-21 in the 1952 World Series and then began the ’53 season 15 for his first 83, and so he was sitting with a .181 average on the unseasonably muggy Sunday morning of May 24.

Hodges reported for Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium for work that morning. Back home in Brooklyn, in Park Slope, Father Herbert Redmond climbed to his pulpit at St. Francis Xavier Church, took mercy on his sweltering congregation fanning themselves with their missals, and delivered one of the shortest and most famous homilies in the history of Catholicism.

“It’s too hot for a sermon today,” Father Redmond declared. “Go home, keep the Commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges.”

Hodges went 2-for-5 that day. He hit .302 that year, 37 homers, 122 RBIs. He finished 14th in the MVP vote. Slumps really don’t have to be infinite. Except good luck believing that when you’re actually on the inside of one.

Lindor’s worst slump? That was 2016, an 0-for-27 that carried him to the end of a regular season in which he still hit a career-best .301, finished ninth in the MVP vote and carried the Indians to within one game of Cleveland’s first world championship in 68 years, a postseason in which he hit .310 with an .820 OPS.

“I need winning,” Lindor said. “That’s what makes me happiest.”

He says that too often for it to simply be something he likes to say. But even winning, sweet as it is anyway, must feel better when the iron collar of an 0-fer is taken from around your neck. Much better, actually.

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Mike Vaccaro

Follow us on Google News