Frankie Lindor went on record last month and noted that “getting booed sucks.”
So, how does he feel now that he was hearing more cheers at Citi Field, and is roughly halfway through a June where he’s slashing .310/.383/.571 with two homers in 42 at-bats?
“It feels great. It’s a little bit of a relief,” Lindor said this weekend. “The first couple of game when I got booed, it felt like I was playing on the road, now it feels like I’m home, and I want to thank the crowd for showing up and supporting the whole team.”
Lindor admitted in that earlier conversation that he understood why the boos came down; despite stellar defensive play, his .542 OPS in April was abysmal, he struck out almost as much as he hit (11 vs. 14), and he instantly became a target due to his contract. May wasn’t much better, but he got hot late, and now, the nominal Bronx cheers became true cheers.
“We win with them, we don’t win without them. They’re a big part of our success every single time, and they definitely put a lot of pressure on other teams,” Lindor said of the fans at Citi. “We play the game day in and day out as hard as we can to get the W that day.”
What’s also helping? Despite a slew of injuries, the Mets enter Monday three games up on Philly for the NL East lead and were, prior to the Phils’ sweep of the Yankees, the only team in their division above .500.
"Yeah, you hear people talking about it, but not us here in the clubhouse. We focus on our task on a daily basis, and whenever we don’t come up with the W, try to come back the next day and try to get the win at the end of the day,” Lindor said of the Mets’ approach. “It’s such a long season. It’s such a long season. I think we still have 100-plus games left, a lot of baseball left. As long as we continue to get healthy and stay healthy, we’ll be in a good spot."
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