Francisco Lindor’s slump deepens as Mets fall to Cardinals
Last week, when he was still only in rough patch territory, Francisco Lindor denied it was anything worse. “I don’t feel like I’m in a slump. In a slump, for me, is when I’m 0-for-35, 0-for-30,” he said after going 0-3 in an April 28 loss.
As it turns out, he spoke it into existence. He doesn’t have a hit since April 27, falling into a full-blown 0-21 slump.
The Mets (11-12) had plenty of opportunities in a 6-5 loss to the Cardinals on Monday night, and Lindor led the way in squandering them. He went 0-4 with a walk and two strikeouts, leaving five men on base.
The lights briefly flickered out in St. Louis with Lindor on first and Pete Alonso at bat with two outs in the ninth inning, but returned seconds later.
Joey Lucchesi took the loss, giving up six runs and not making it out of the third inning. His ERA is now 10.13 after giving up 12 runs in 10.2 innings as a Met.
At least the Mets’ bats weren’t totally comatose, outside of Lindor. Alonso had two doubles, giving him four in the last three games, and Kevin Pillar homered for the second straight game. Pillar’s two-run bomb off Adam Wainwright gave the Mets a 5-2 lead in the third inning.
“It has been a little bit of an adjustment coming off the bench,” said Pillar, who started the season 3-for-26 before busting out the last two games. “I like to remind people that I can play this game.”
But the Cardinals’ streaking bats were superior. It looked like Lucchesi could escape the third inning as he battled with Nolan Arenado, who fouled off three straight breaking balls with two strikes. Lucchesi hung the fourth, and Arenado bashed a three-run homer. It’s the fifth straight game with a three-run dinger for St. Louis.
Mets manager Luis Rojas brushed off the possibility that Arenado missed on a pitch that was called a foul tip with two strikes. Lucchesi said that he thought he struck out Arenado, but that catcher Tomas Nido told him after the game it was fouled off.
After pushing back Jacob deGrom’s start to Tuesday, the Mets opted for Lucchesi as the starter instead of a bullpen game or Jordan Yamamoto, who will pitch for the Syracuse Mets on Tuesday.
“The command wasn’t there, especially with the churve,” Rojas said of Lucchesi. “The bullpen was used a lot over the weekend, so the one thing we were looking for was length. We didn’t get it.”
After Lucchesi, the Mets bullpen ate much-needed innings with several relievers banged up or unavailable. Robert Gsellman retired seven straight batters, Sean Reid-Foley went two scoreless innings and Jacob Barnes threw a scoreless eighth.
Lindor has been part of a slick middle infield tandem with Jeff McNeil, who started another fantastic first-inning double play on Monday night.
He has slumped badly before, going 0-27 with Cleveland in 2016. The shortstop still has the faith of manager Luis Rojas, who said Monday before the game that he would continue to bat him second in the lineup between McNeil and Michael Conforto.
“The mental part of it is just him not making an adjustment pitch to pitch,” Rojas said. “Wainwright threw him a lot of curveballs, and he just couldn’t adjust. And I think he has the ability to adjust.”
