QUEENS, NY — Almost everyone saw the ball hit the railing. Citi Field’s spotlights flickered. Francisco Lindor, rounding second base, slowed his trot for a split second. Then, the second-base umpire, Jordan Baker, signaled that the ball was in play. Lindor accelerated and slid into third base for at least a triple.
But Lindor knew he’d be coming home. After a quick review, the ball was ruled a home run — Lindor’s second of the evening.
“Man, Jordan wanted to take it away from me,” Lindor joked in the New York Mets clubhouse after Friday’s 4–2 win over the Colorado Rockies at Citi Field. “Getting triples, that’s when the hamstring gets tired, so just blame Jordan.”
Lindor made the highlight reel on both sides of the field on Friday. Both of his home runs — his 11th and 12th of the season — were solo shots and accounted for half of New York’s offense as they handed the historically bad Rockies their 48th loss of 2025.
Lindor led off the game with a home run that further added to his Mets legacy. This homer was his seventh leadoff blast with the Mets, steering him clear of Mookie Wilson and bringing him even with Michael Conforto for sixth all-time in franchise history.
He ended the game having hit 122 home runs with New York, and jumped up the club’s career home run leaderboard by surpassing Edgardo Alfonzo and tying Kevin McReynolds for 11th all-time.
If that wasn’t enough history, the Mets extended their franchise record in consecutive wins when a specific player — in this case, Lindor — has hit a home run. The Mets have won 25 straight games when Lindor has gone yard — which is an ongoing club record stretching back to July 9, 2024. The previous record was 21 wins in games when George Foster homered, set between July 3, 1985 and June 29, 1986.
To illustrate how historically significant this streak is, a 25-game team winning streak when a player has hit a home run is tied with Lou Gehrig and Ken Caminiti for second all-time in the Major Leagues. According to Sarah Langs, Carl Furillo holds the record at 29 games.
Lindor’s 12 home runs lead all Major League Baseball shortstops this season, and his 260 total career long balls are tied with Derek Jeter for the fourth-most by a player who has spent at least 60% of his games at shortstop.
Also impressive was that Lindor, a switch-hitter, hit each of his home runs on Friday from a different side of the plate. Batting right, he went deep off of Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland on the fifth pitch of the game. Batting left in the bottom of the eighth, he hit his second off of Rockies right-hander Seth Halvorsen. Both balls wound up in left field, leaving manager Carlos Mendoza impressed.
“That’s when he’s clicking,” Mendoza said.
Hitting a baseball is a skill that takes years to learn and even longer to perfect. Even for professionals like Lindor, his movements are a work in progress.
For Lindor, this involves a lot of physical therapy, working with the coaching staff and studying film. On top of that, Lindor added, he watches his teammates — he specifically named Pete Alonso and Tyrone Taylor — and tries to pick up a couple of things.
“We don’t hit the same,” Lindor said. “But we all have similar movements.”
Being a switch hitter adds another level of complexity: aligning his body correctly on both sides of the plate and rotating through his swing on each side. On this night, Lindor said, both of these things lined up for him.
Lindor also hit a single up the middle in the bottom of the third inning and scored on a Juan Soto double, which snapped Soto’s 0-for-17 hitless drought. He finished the game with three hits in four at-bats, three runs scored, and two runs batted in. He put up a team-high .827 on base plus slugging percentage.
“[He’s] in a position to make some really good swing decisions,” Mendoza said. “And obviously hitting the ball with authority.”
On this night, just as Lindor was dominant at the plate, he showed how his acrobatic defensive capabilities are equally important to the Mets’ success.
David Peterson had run into trouble in the top of the third inning, allowing singles to Tyler Freeman and Jordan Beck. He struck out Ezequiel Tovar to record the second out, but he then walked Hunter Goodman to load the bases. When Thairo Estrada connected on a curveball, Peterson worried that the ball was headed straight for the left-center gap.
“I didn’t love it,” Peterson said.
But he knew that as long as Lindor was nearby, he had a chance. And that was no issue for the Mets’ star shortstop, who leapt up and snagged the 107.2 mile-per-hour line drive.
“It’s cool,” Lindor said. “I loved it. Tried to get my knees as high as I could so it looked like I jumped higher.”
“It was awesome to see him get up for that,” Peterson added. “And catch it, and get us out of the inning.”
Peterson credited the Mets’ defense for its efforts in his win, which pushed his record to 4–2 on the season. Lindor’s play to rob Estrada of what would’ve easily resulted in multiple runs batted in, decreased the Rockies’ win probability by 8.6% and protected Peterson’s commendable final line of five hits, one earned run and a 2.69 earned run averaged in the 5.2 innings he pitched.
Soto also made two key defensive plays that prevented the Rockies from getting back into the game. In the top of the sixth, he ran down Ryan McMahon’s double in the right field corner, preventing the speedy Brenton Doyle from scoring and holding Colorado to just one run on the play. In the top of the seventh, Soto got a bad break on a Tovar line drive, but backtracked and made an outstretched catch.
Peterson has fared well at the notoriously pitcher-friendly Citi Field this season. The Mets are now 7–0 in Peterson’s home starts, and he’s allowed three runs or fewer in each of these.
Citi Field, though tough to hit in the early months of the season, gives the Mets a certain home-field advantage. As Lindor found out in the bottom of the eighth, home runs are never a given.
“This field, you never know if you get it,” he said. “Just running hard. I look at Jordan and he called a no home run. So I get on third base for the big guys, but Jordan, don’t ever do that again.”
For more on Francisco Lindor and the Mets, visit AMNY.com
