Francisco Lindor's early season struggles continue in return to NY Mets lineup

Despite an RBI single, Lindor's error in the fourth was the deciding factor in loss to Marlins
New York Mets v Miami Marlins
New York Mets v Miami Marlins | Rich Storry/GettyImages

After the birth of his son, Francisco Lindor made his return to the New York Mets starting lineup on Tuesday night but his early season struggles continued. Lindor finally got his first hit of the season, an RBI single in the third, but it was his defense that was problematic.

Francisco Lindor's has uncharacteristically bad defensive night in Tuesday loss in Miami

Lindor had two errors in the Mets 4-2 loss to the Marlins and the second error led to the game winning run to score. Leading off the bottom of the fourth, Otto Lopez hit a routine ground ball that the two-time Gold Glove winning shortstop couldn't handle. Now, playing with an extra out, Graham Pauley made the Mets pay with a two out, two RBI double that gave the Marlins the lead for good.
Even during his offensive struggles, Lindor's defense has always been consistent. He made just twelve errors all of last season, so to see him make two before the fifth inning was extremely surprising.

The error and double put a damper on an otherwise solid start to the season for Kodai Senga. After the Mets fell behind by two runs for the second time in the game, the bats went silent. Lindor would bat two more times in the game, striking out in the sixth and grounding out on the first pitch he saw in the eighth. Through three games he is just 1 for 13 with two RBI. To be fair, that is an improvement from 2024 when he started the season 0 for 24.

I'm sure his head is anywhere but the ballpark with a two-day old son at home. Thanks to his annual struggles at the plate to begin the season, it's easy to look at Lindor but the entire lineup once again couldn't put a complete effort together. Outside of Monday night's ten run outlier, the Mets have scored three runs or less in their other four games. Tuesday night's loss featured just five hits with Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos going hitless. A small but frustrating sample size as the team will go for its first series win of the season on Wednesday afternoon in Miami.

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