NEW YORK — There was a moment on Saturday when Francisco Lindor looked like he was going to do the “right” thing, and then… didn’t. The Mets were already trailing, the crowd was tense, and you could almost feel the air change when Lawrence Butler rolled a ground ball to second baseman Marcus Semien that should have ended the inning cleanly.
Instead, Semien had to sprint to second base after Lindor, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner, made a play for the ball rather than going to second to turn two. One extra beat, one wrong decision, and suddenly an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play turned into a run for the Athletics.
“It’s weird because that’s not him,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets’ fourth straight loss. “It’s hard to explain. And he’ll be the first one. He’ll tell you that he’s got to be better. But yeah, never seen some of those plays that he’s just out of position at times.”
This season, the Mets aren’t just dealing with a slow start from Lindor’s bat — they’re dealing with a new kind of worry: mistakes that feel out of character for a five-time All-Star shortstop. Through 15 games, Lindor is batting .167. And in the field, he’s added a layer of uncharacteristic errors that are piling up a little too fast.
Saturday’s lapse was the latest, but it wasn’t the first. It was Lindor’s third misstep in two days. On Friday, in the third inning, he was flat-footed making a turn at second base on a potential inning-ending double-play ball. Then, in the sixth inning with runners on the corners and none out and the Mets down 1-0, he was caught off third on a grounder to first baseman Nick Kurtz. If you’re keeping count, this weekend’s miscues followed two unforced mistakes against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 1, when he lost track of the number of outs while fielding what should have been an inning-ending double play in the first inning, and was picked off at first base while fiddling with his batting gloves in the sixth.
Asked if he could point to anything behind the gaffes, Lindor — 32 now, with a calm way of answering even when things feel messy — said, “Not sure.” He added, “I feel like I’m locked in. I feel like I’m in the game. It just happens. Got to be better.” That “it just happens” part lands differently when you’ve watched Gold Glove-caliber decisions unravel in real time.
At the plate, Lindor’s numbers aren’t helping. He’s 10-for-60 with 10 walks, 13 strikeouts and an .546 OPS. On Saturday he went 1-for-5, singling and scoring on Bo Bichette’s first home run with the Mets in the fifth inning. Lindor struck out on three pitches in the first inning, triggering an early chorus of boos from the home crowd, and he struck out again in his final at-bat in the eighth before the Mets fell to 7-8 on the season.
“There’s always been pressure,” Lindor said. He’s in the fifth year of a 10-year, $341 million contract extension, and he described expecting a lot from himself. Meanwhile, the Mets’ offensive rhythm has been affected by Juan Soto’s absence. Soto was off to a scorching start, going 11-for-31 with an .928 OPS in eight games, before suffering a left calf strain running the bases against the San Francisco Giants on April 3. The Mets are 3-4 in the seven games without him.
But Mendoza doesn’t buy the “lineup fixes it” argument when it comes to Lindor. “He’s the same guy,” Mendoza said of Lindor. “He shows up. He prepares. He works as hard as anybody. He wants to win. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with who’s in the lineup and who’s not. It’s weird.” Around the stadium, the kind of noise you hear when boos come early — and the faint, lingering smell of sunscreen warming under lights — doesn’t fade quickly.
And for the Mets, the problem isn’t just that Lindor is cold at the plate. It’s that the coldness has started to spill into the in-between moments: the turns, the reads, the choices that usually don’t come with this much hesitation. The Mets are hoping it’s a short stretch. But “weird” is a tough word to live with when the calendar moves on and the gaffes keep stacking.
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