Mets' Francisco Lindor's defensive miscues, mental mistakes 'hard to explain'

Francisco Lindor is off to a strange start for the Mets this year.

Having already made his fair share of mental mistakes in the field and on the base paths in the early going of the season, the normally meticulous Lindor had another miscue in Saturday’s 11-6 loss to the Athletics.

With the bases loaded and one out in a tie game in the second inning, Kodai Senga, who was not at his best, induced a ground ball to the right side of the second base bag that looked to be a relatively easy potential double play that would’ve ended the inning.

However, despite Marcus Semien fielding the ball, Lindor went to his right to try and make a play on it as well, instead of breaking towards second base to get the force out and throwing to first to complete the potential double play.

With nobody covering second, Semien had to step on the bag himself for the force out (just barely beating the runner) and was unable to throw the runner out at first, allowing a run to score.

After the game, Lindor was asked what happened on that play.

“I went after the ball and Marcus was there and I didn’t make it to second base and we didn’t turn a double play,” he said. “Senga could’ve got out of the inning right there and I didn’t help him.”

It’s not the first time, or even the second time, that Lindor has made an unusual decision either defensively or on the bases that has cost the Mets. Just last night he was thrown out at third base on a grounder hit to first after veering too far off the bag in a game New York was trailing 1-0 late.

The mental lapses combined with his struggling offense has made Lindor, a five-time All-Star and two-time Gold-Glover, look like a shell of himself during the first month of the season.

“It’s weird because that’s not him,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “It’s hard to explain. He’ll be the first one to tell you that he has to be better. Never seen some of those plays where he’s just out of position sometimes.”

Even Lindor had trouble explaining what’s going on because he feels like he’s “locked in” out there.

With the calf injury to Juan Soto causing him to be out of the lineup, is it possible Lindor is putting added pressure on himself to perform?

“Not at all,” Mendoza said. “He’s the same guy. He shows up, he prepares. He works as hard as anybody, he wants to win. I don’t think it has to do with who's in the lineup and who’s not.”

While all of that may be true, it’s still hard to ignore the shortstop’s struggles this season.

Offensively, Lindor, who is known to get off to cold starts in his career – especially with the Mets, is slashing .167/.296/.250 with no home runs and zero RBI. While those numbers are nowhere near his expected production or career averages, what was at least somewhat encouraging during the first week of the season was his ability to get on base via walks.

However, since Soto landed on the IL retroactively on April 4, Lindor has not walked once. During that stretch, he is 5-for-33 at the top of the Mets lineup.

“He’s been through it before,” Mendoza said. “This is a guy who is very streaky and he’s gotten off to starts like this. It’s just hard to explain right now.”

To Lindor’s credit, after many such cases of poor starts to a season, his end-of-year numbers are always there. Right now he’s even got a three-game hit streak going.

“I feel like I’m trending in the right direction,” he said.

As for the mental mistakes that keep piling up? Mendoza believes they’ll be fixed sooner rather than later.

“We’re better than that and they know that… making errors and mental mistakes. We’re better than that. We gotta fix it and we will,” the skipper said.