It took 18 games for Francisco Lindor to get booed at Citi Field for the first time as a Met.
Yet the $341 million superstar shortstop is taking it in stride and looking forward to hearing what fills the stadium when the results start coming — and he is confident they will in short order.
“It’s interesting and it’s funny and it sucks,” Lindor said Wednesday, the day after the boo birds came for him late in a 2-1 loss to the Red Sox. “It doesn’t feel right, for sure. Interesting, because this is the first time that it happened in my career, and funny because I’m getting booed and people think I’m gonna go home and think about why I’m getting booed. I get it. They’re booing because there’s no results. That’s it. They expect results, I expect results and I get it. It’s part of the job. People expect results and they’re booing because there’s no results.
“I just hope they cheer and jump on the field when I start hitting home runs and start helping the team on a daily basis a lot more than I’m doing right now.”
Lindor entered Wednesday batting .212 (14-for-66) with one home run and a 71 OPS-plus (100 being league average). He said he didn’t feel like he was in a slump — that, to him, is something like an 0-for-30 stretch where he’s not doing anything to help the team — and wasn’t chasing pitches until recently.
But after he grounded out to finish 1-for-4 Tuesday — another game in which he continued to play standout defense — a smattering of boos greeted him as he walked back to the dugout.
Francisco Lindor’s frustrating start with the Mets induced boos in Tuesday. Charles Wenzelberg / New York“I didn’t come to New York to hit .350 and win MVP,” Lindor said. “I came to New York to win and I’m going to do whatever it takes to win.”
The good news, Lindor said, is that he isn’t searching for what ails him at the plate.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” he said, adding that it is the reason why he is not frustrated or constantly thinking about every at-bat. “I’m not getting the barrel to the baseball. As I’m getting to the baseball, I drop the barrel or I get around it.”
The stats back up that claim. Entering Wednesday, Lindor had barreled up just one ball all season, according to Statcast — with his 1.7 percent barrel rate registering at the sixth percentile in MLB.
In order to get his barrel on more baseballs, Lindor is putting in the work to get back to form. Manager Luis Rojas said Lindor arrived at the field early Wednesday and was working with hitting coach Chili Davis to incorporate drills that he had “gotten away from this year.” The Mets’ hope is that the drills will put Lindor in a better position to drive the ball more.
“We know that he can pull the ball in the air, that’s where his damage is from both sides of the plate,” Rojas said. “But him starting to drive the ball more is going to get him there.”
In the meantime, Lindor had his focus on the goal, despite his start to the season that neither he nor the fan base expected entering their first season together.
“It’s going to work,” he said. “I came to New York to win. I want to win. I’m going to do whatever it takes. Right now the fans and people think I’m not doing my part to win, and they want to see results. The results will come, for sure. They will come. And if whatever happens at the end of the day, I just want to come out on top at the end of the year. I’m looking forward to God-willing making it to the playoffs and having the greatest postseason in New York history as a team.”
