who two-hit the Yankees over the final 17 innings<\/a> of a series in The Bronx that ended Thursday \u2014 until Jared Young laid down a bunt that somehow stayed fair with one out in the fourth.\u00a0<\/p>\nYoung was the last position player to crack the roster coming out of spring training yet was the club\u2019s No. 3 hitter. He is off to a nice start, so the slot was understandable, but it underscored how feeble the Mets order has looked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is no Juan Soto, who is not yet running and is likely weeks away from a return. It is possible the rest of the order \u2014 which finished with six hits, not a single Met with more than one \u2014 is trying to do too much without its best hitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSoto is irreplaceable. He\u2019s one of the best hitters in the game,\u201d Lindor said. \u201cGuys understand that we got to get it done. We\u2019re all professionals, and we have to get it done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lindor has to get it done, he acknowledged, but this is turning into yet another April in which he gets off to a slow start. Through 14 games, he is 9-for-55 (.164) without a home run. Even a rare hit Friday ended up leading to a different kind of mistake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bo Bichette (19) strikes out in the first inning against the Athletics at Citi Field, Friday, April 10, 2026, in Queens, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Down a run, the Mets began a rally in the sixth inning against righty reliever Jack Perkins. Lindor singled and went to third on a single from Bo Bichette.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was life injected into Queens. An instant later, it was gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Young grounded to Nick Kurtz, and Lindor attempted \u2014 successfully \u2014 to draw a throw from the first baseman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDelivering insights on all things Amazin\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Mets by Mike Puma, exclusively on Sports+\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat\u2019s the right play,\u201d Mendoza maintained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely wanted to stay out of a double play in that situation,\u201d Lindor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The merits of the play are debatable, but the execution lacked. Ideally, Lindor would have wandered far enough off the base to draw a throw and either return to the base safely or induce a rundown, which would allow the trail runners to move to second and third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, Kurtz eyed Lindor, hesitated a moment and then threw a strike to nail Lindor before he could return to the base. Three pitches later, Robert grounded into a double play, which jump-started rounds of boos that became the soundtrack for the late innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor (12) gets caught off the bag by Athletics third baseman Max Muncy. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have done a better job of holding [out for] the rundown,\u201d said Lindor, whose bigger issues reside with his bat than legs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He continues to state that the spring surgery on his hamate \u2014 which notoriously saps power from hitters \u2014 is not a factor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What he does believe is a factor is a tendency of late to swing at pitches outside the strike zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to get better,\u201d Lindor said. \u201cAt the beginning of the year, I was doing a really good job of controlling the strike zone. Now, I\u2019m expanding a little bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adding to the insulting offense was the Holmes injury, which was not immediately believed to be serious. The righty exited in the sixth with what the club called left hamstring tightness after allowing one run in 5 \u00b9\/\u2083 innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tobias Myers entered and pitched well until he let up three runs in the top of the ninth, but pitching became a Mets afterthought Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When pressure and, now, injuries begin mounting and the hits are not, there is a tendency for players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31643,30159,20,9,11,320,10,39076,319,72254],"class_list":{"0":"post-193055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-clay-holmes","9":"tag-francisco-lindor","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-oakland-as","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tobias-myers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}