Inside Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor's series-clinching grand slam

NEW YORK — Katia Lindor closed her eyes and started praying.

When she opened them, the ball off Francisco Lindor’s bat was still in the air — and heading toward the fence in right-center field. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she told herself as it continued to sail. Finally, the ball landed beyond the fence and into the visitor’s bullpen. Pandemonium ensued around her, a blur of fans in orange and blue jumping up and down and making the ground shake.

She started crying.

“It’s almost like a weight is lifted off our shoulders where it’s like, people finally appreciate him, and they see his value,” Lindor’s wife said. “I think they’re starting to see it beyond the field, too, and definitely on the field. I’m so proud of him. I’m in awe of him every day. His hard work is just incessant. He does not take his responsibility and his role lightly.”

Lindor’s sixth-inning grand slam was perhaps the biggest home run in Citi Field’s brief history, and perhaps the best swing of his life. In one fell swoop Wednesday, the hit put the Mets on the board, gave them the lead and accounted for all of their offense in a 4-1 victory that eliminated the rival Phillies from the postseason and sent New York to the National League Championship Series for the first time since 2015.

The series-cliching grand slam — a true fairytale moment for Queens — also served as a metaphor for all that Lindor means to this Mets organization.

“I want to win it all. I want to win it all,” Lindor said. “And ours will be a team that will forever be remembered. This will be a team that comes every 10 years and eats for free everywhere they go. And I want to do that. I want to do that. But the job is not done.”

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, eyes red from champagne and hysteria, said anyone who’s watched Lindor step up in clutch situations this year had a feeling he would be the one to deliver the big hit in a tight Game 4 of the NLDS.

“I don’t know that there’s another player in baseball you want at the plate right now in that situation,” Stearns said.

Just nine days ago, which can feel like nine weeks in October, Lindor swatted a go-ahead, eighth-inning two-run homer against the Braves to seal the Mets’ playoff spot. Over the next week, Lindor continually reached base to set up key home runs for his teammates, including Pete Alonso’s ninth-inning three-run blast in a winner-takes-all wild-card game against the Brewers and Mark Vientos‘ ninth-inning two-run shot that tied Game 2 of the NLDS versus Philadelphia. It’s hard to believe Lindor’s dramatic grand slam on a 100 mph offering from Carlos Estévez was his first home run of this postseason given how much he’s contributed to every win.

”The whole time, I was like, this is who we are,” manager Carlos Mendoza said he was thinking as Citi Field erupted. “This is part of the story. This is part of the book, the movie, whatever you want to call it. When he connected to that ball, I just wanted [Lindor] to enjoy it.”

“I don’t remember putting my hands up. But my hands were just, like, in the air,” Alonso said of his reaction to Lindor’s grand slam. “Just an unbelievable swing. I mean, that was a swing of a lifetime. That’s what you practice in the backyard, as a kid growing up.”

It’s not hyperbole to say that the shortstop has led every step of the way — from an 0-5 start to the season to being 11 games under .500 in late May through being snubbed for the All-Star Game — in the Mets’ improbable odyssey to the NLCS. Lindor’s attention to detail and ability to stay level-headed in stressful situations are only a couple of reasons why his teammates describe him as an assassin, consistent, their MVP, their leader, and their captain. Stearns said the 30-year-old Lindor has structured his entire life to do what he did Wednesday night at Citi Field.

His latest act of leadership arrived not in the sixth inning but the ninth, after Edwin Díaz walked his first two batters on 10 pitches. The embattled Mets closer was walking the tightrope of preserving a three-run lead when pitching coach Jeremy Hefner called for a mound visit.

Díaz tried to pump himself up by repeating, “Let’s go, let’s go.” That’s when Lindor got in Díaz’s ear: “Don’t say, ‘let’s go,'” Lindor told him. “Just do it.”

In an instant, Díaz, who’d been struggling to locate, locked in and threw his 99 mph fastballs right where he wanted them — blowing them by pinch-hitter Kody Clemens for a strikeout. After inducing a flyout, Díaz quickly got ahead of postseason titan Kyle Schwarber before putting him away with a 101 mph heater to shut the door on the NL East champions’ season.

As the Mets’ dugout swarmed the field, something magnificent ensued: Rather than rush to the mound, the entire Mets roster sprinted to where Lindor was standing in the infield dirt and enveloped him with a hug. Then, and only then, did his emotionless facade fade away. He smiled, he cried, he laughed, and he looked around at the Citi Field crowd and took it all in.

“We’re blessed to do this in front of the fans,” a red-eyed Lindor told FOX’s Tom Verducci. “We just keep climbing. My at-bat doesn’t come up if it wasn’t for the guys in front of me. Today I was the one who drove in runs, but it could have been anybody.”

But it was most likely to be Lindor, and it allowed a long-suffering fan base to witness a series win in Flushing for the first time since 2000.

“Great ball players do great things,” Mets owner Steve Cohen said of Lindor’s slam. “It was bases loaded. It was a big moment, so I was standing up. You knew something was going to happen.”

As has been his style this fall, Lindor was straight-faced and locked in as he rounded the bases following his homer. Somehow, he was the only one keeping it together while the rest of Queens lost their minds. Outfielder Jesse Winker described Lindor as a “stone-cold killer.” Lindor’s low-key reactions are a departure from the explosive, celebratory displays he used to show in his previous postseasons with Cleveland. A few teammates asked Lindor about it, and he told them that he wouldn’t celebrate until the job was done, until the Mets got the final out of the World Series.

Just 24 hours earlier, Lindor said this was the calmest he’s ever felt in his six career trips to the playoffs.

“I don’t know, for some reason the reactions from me this year haven’t been as jumpy or as excited,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know if it has to do with being tired or if it has to do with just trying to stay in the moment, that I don’t have that crazy reaction I usually have. It’s just, I’m in a good place right now. I’m living the life I always wanted.”

So are the Mets.

As the team celebrated on the field in dark black T-shirts soaked in champagne, one fan held up a sign that said, “Believe in miracles.” Another read “DESTINY” in orange lettering. That’s what the 2024 Mets are playing like: a team of destiny that is resilient above all else. When they rolled into spring training, the Mets had a 2.2% chance of winning the NLCS, according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds. That same projection system gave them a 1% chance of winning the World Series. Now, the Mets are just eight victories away.

Stearns had a few choice words for those who’ve criticized this Mets’ core — led by Lindor, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo — and questioned whether they could win big games.

“I think they’ve shown that’s bull****,” he said. “This core has been winning games since June 1. So, we can put that to bed right now.”

And yet, Mendoza asserted afterward that the Mets, who in fact have the best record in baseball since June 1, haven’t done anything yet. Lindor said he’s not even close to satisfied. The Mets are enjoying the moment, no doubt. But they’re still hungry, and that should be a terrifying sign for their next opponent. The Mets enter the NLCS as perhaps the most consistent team in baseball.

“This is what I wanted. I came here to play winning baseball and get opportunities to try to win a World Series,” Lindor said, his play having already carried these Mets further than anyone outside of their clubhouse imagined. “We got to keep on climbing.”

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.