Francisco Lindor is known for consistently wearing a smile on the field, but when he rocked an opposite field grand slam to cap off a 10-run inning for the Mets on Friday night, the shortstop had a look of strictly business as he rounded the bases.
The moment normally felt like one that would prompt Lindor to break out his trademark grin, but on this night, he wore a face of stone as he circled the bags.
Turns out, he was listening intently to the Citi Field crowd, which has showered the slumping shortstop with mainly boos in his debut season with the Mets.
“I was happy,” Lindor said. “It just sucks getting booed. It’s that simple. I want to do the best I can do every single day to help the team win, and I was just listening to see if I was gonna get booed. It’s that simple.”
It hasn’t been the strongest season for Lindor in his new home, with career-lows in batting average (.221) and OPS (.686) while being on pace to set a career-high in strikeouts, and with a $341 million contract now attached to his name, the New York faithful haven’t backed away from expressing their frustration as Lindor continues to search for his former All-Star self. A grand slam is one way to break out of a prolonged slump, but in the moment, he was only focused on taking in a rare ovation.
“I work as hard as I can every single day and the guys in the clubhouse work as hard as they can every single day to put up numbers and help this team win,” Lindor said. “I’m nowhere near my best, so when I do have a little bit of success, I just want to sit back and listen and feed off the crowd again.”
The boos likely won’t stop until Lindor’s slump does, and Lindor hasn’t been used to anything but overwhelming support from his days in Cleveland, when he was a superstar. Friday night’s slam was an opportunity to feel that again, and he hopes those moments continue, knowing he has to be the one to help provide them.
“When they cheer, it gives me the extra motivation to continue to move forward,” Lindor said. “The guys in the clubhouse are a huge motivation for me and for everybody. We feed off each other, but we also feed off the fans. Listening to them as I’m rounding the bases, cheering and celebrating with their loved ones or whoever they came to the game with, it’s something that we don’t really do, we don’t really sit back and watch them. So when I hit the home run, all I was thinking was ‘look around, see how the fans react.’ It was pretty cool to see the fans reacting.”
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