Francisco Lindor continues to struggle at the plate as he once again was held hitless and added in a costly error as the Cards beat the Mets 4-1 in the opener of their twin bill in St. Louis.
In this one Marcus Stroman gave up a first inning homer to Paul Goldschmidt and a Nolan Arenado RBI single made it a 2-0 Cards but the Mets plated a run in a bizarre fourth inning in which they loaded the bases with none out but the umpires botched a rule letting the Cards get 2 mound visits without an automatic pitching change because one of the meetings was with an interpreter which is not allowed without a coach accordsing to the baseball rule book.
Francisco Lindor has now gone oh for 24 as his hitting woes continue but on this day his arm betrayed the Mets to open up the gates for a Paul De Jong 2 run homer that put this game away for good. Lindor will sit in the second game as Luis Rojas will try to give him some time to think about his poor hitting. From my eyes, he looks perplexed with the bat swinging off balance reaching for outside pitches while taking hittable pitches.
But until today Lindor has given the Mets stellar defense and today that surfaced making me think his batting slump is deep in his mind and that has to change. With a big contract, comes big expectations and that is the bottom line. He gave the Mets a deadline to come up with that money and the time has arrived for him to start performing or things could get real messy with a Met fanbase that is beginning to question his abilities.
Injuries also continue to bit the Mets as Brandon Nimmo was put on the Injured List where he joins JD Davis on that list leaving the Mets with an undermanned lineup. But all teams have to deal with adversity and quite frankly this team has dealt with it well. But the last 48 hours this team had to deal with coaching changes, deGrom missing a start and the continuing slump of Francisco Lindor.
They simply can not make excuses because winning team never do that. They need someone on this roster to pick them up. And they need that in short order because this season is at a tipping point RIGHT NOW.