ATLANTA — Francisco Lindor did so much speaking Monday.
Words were needed after Edwin Diaz coughed up a three-run lead in the chaotic, bottom of the eighth inning of the doubleheader opener.
The Braves scored four runs in the frame, had surged ahead and were three outs from completing a stunning comeback.
Lindor remembers using one word repeatedly in the dugout before the ninth.
“Keep fighting. Just fight. Fight. Fight. Fight,” Lindor would say later. “We got to play 27 outs.”
After the 27th out, the Mets’ unofficial captain addressed a victorious clubhouse that had to postpone its celebration and play nine more innings.
“Keep fighting,” Lindor told his teammates, according to Tylor Megill. “It’s all we’ve been doing all year.”
The words matter from an MVP candidate who carried the team on his back all season until his back gave out — and now is doing so again through the pain.
Louder, though, was the swing.
Of course it was Lindor.
Of course it was the face and mouth of the team who stepped to the plate in the ninth inning with a one-run deficit and turned it into a one-run lead.
Of course it was Lindor, whose back ails when he bends over, who went down and got a low curveball from Pierce Johnson and blasted it over the center-field wall at Truist Park for the two-run home run that sent the Mets into the postseason and sent his teammates into hysteria.
The Mets spilled out of the dugout.
Mark Vientos waved a towel.
Jesse Winker demanded an air-slap.
A celebrating Starling Marte, who had singled one at-bat prior, nearly was lapped on the basepaths.
Amid the stirring scene was a stoic Lindor.
He ran hard out of the box, unsure if the ball would have the distance.
He watched it clear the wall and Michael Harris II’s glove, and “Mr. Smile” did not crack one or slow his stride.
He kept running, the effort to get himself ready for these games nearly overwhelming the joy that swings like that one give him.
“My back hurts. I’m tired,” Lindor said of his reserved reaction. “I know how good Atlanta is.”
Not good enough in the first game of the doubleheader, the Mets finally holding onto a lead in the stirring, 8-7 win over the Braves that sent his team to the postseason.
The Mets’ best player played like it in their largest game.
He played nine innings of shortstop through pain that had forced him to sit for eight straight games.
He smacked an RBI single in the eighth inning as part of a six-run uprising.
He watched Diaz melt down, talked his team through the collapse and then stole the game right back.
Lindor was looking for something over the plate and got it, launching his 33rd and final home run of the season that allowed the Mets to exhale and allowed him to finally take a seat, able to rest for the second game.
Shohei Ohtani might have locked up the National League MVP, but there is no doubt who the Mets MVP is both on the field and off.
“His leadership is unreal,” Megill said. “We follow him.”
