Before Tuesday, Francisco Lindor had never been booed by a home crowd in his career.
Wednesday, it happened for a second straight night.
Less than a month after signing a 10-year, $341 million extension with the Mets, Lindor’s honeymoon with the fan base appears to be over as he was the subject of more boos during a 1-0 loss to the Red Sox at Citi Field.
Lindor went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts, sinking his batting average to .203 (14-for-69) through 19 games. There were boos after each strikeout Wednesday: enough to hear it in the third inning and then a much louder chorus in the sixth from the sellout crowd of 8,051.
“It’s interesting and it’s funny and it sucks,” Lindor said before Wednesday’s loss, reacting to hearing the boos for the first time the night before. “It doesn’t feel right, for sure. Interesting, because this is the first time that it happened in my career, and funny because I’m getting booed and people think I’m gonna go home and think about why I’m getting booed. I get it. They’re booing because there’s no results. That’s it. They expect results, I expect results and I get it. It’s part of the job.
“I just hope they cheer and jump on the field when I start hitting home runs and start helping the team on a daily basis a lot more than I’m doing right now.”
Lindor wasn’t the only Mets batter to hear boos rain down on him Wednesday, but he has been unable to spark a slumping offense.
The shortstop self-diagnosed his problem as not getting his barrel to the baseball — dropping it just before he makes contact, he said. The stats back up that claim. Entering Wednesday, Lindor had barreled up just one ball all season, according to Statcast — with his 1.7 percent barrel rate registering at the sixth percentile in MLB.
In his final at-bat Wednesday, in what manager Luis Rojas called a “step forward,” Lindor smoked a line drive at 95.9 mph off the bat. But in line with the way things are going for him, it ended up in the glove of a leaping Marwin Gonzalez at second base.
“That was really good,” Rojas said. “He was committed to that pitch, he got it and swung and he barreled it. I actually had a conversation pregame with him about staying aggressive. He was one of the first guys that told me, ‘I’m not being aggressive enough at times.’ … That was good to see.”
Lindor, who said he didn’t feel like he was in a slump, remains focused on the bigger picture.
“I didn’t come to New York to hit .350 and win MVP,” Lindor said. “I came to New York to win, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to win.”