– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — Even with his stellar play on the field, Francisco Lindor has become a New York Mets fan favorite because of his main song choice for his walk-up music, The Temptations’ My Girl, is sung in unison by 40,000-plus fans even after the tune trails off. His back-up tune, the equally-as-popular Ain’t No Mountain High Enough duet from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, usually is played in the later innings when Lindor walks to the plate, but the song is fitting given the correlation of his home runs and Mets victories.
The mountain that opponents have to climb is indisputably too high when Lindor goes yard, and the Mets’ shortstop hit two for good measure on Friday.
Lindor hit his fifth lead-off home run of the season, then gave New York insurance with a solo shot to the opposite field in the eighth inning to lift the Mets to a 4-2 win over the Colorado Rockies inside Citi Field. Juan Soto went 2-for-4 with a double that scored Lindor in the third inning, while David Peterson allowed just a run on five hits in 5 2/3 innings.
New York improved its Major League-best home record to 22-7, which seemed fait accompli once Lindor smacked a 1-2 fastball over the left-field wall off Rockies starter Kyle Freeland to start the scoring. New York has now won its last 25 games in which Lindor has gone deep.
Lindor’s three hits were a welcome sight not just because of the good omen of his knocks leaving the yard; Coming into tonight, Lindor was 8-for-55 at the plate since May 13.
Defensively, Lindor (along with Peterson) snuffed out the Rockies’ first big threat of the evening, as he caught a liner from the bat of Thairo Estrada with the bases loaded to end the top of the third inning and keep the game at 1-0.
Four batters later, the Mets doubled their lead. Lindor hit a one-out single, and with two outs, Soto, who was mired in a 0-for-17 skid amidst the firestorm surrounding his season-long malaise after coming over to Queens from the Bronx last December, cracked a double into the right-centerfield gap that scored Francisco from first.
Starling Marte hit a solo homer 432 feet to center field in the fourth for a 3-0 New York lead.
Colorado, like its most recent series when it stayed in touch with the Chicago Cubs all series but fell short of victory in each game, scraped runs in the sixth and seventh to get right back in the contest. Ryan McMahon’s two-out double in the sixth off Peterson scored Estrada to put the Rockies on the board, then Sam Hilliard hit a pinch-hit home run off reliever Huascar Brazoban to bring the Rockies within one.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Friday evening’s game, with photos taken by New York-based photographer Matthew Last. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 18 pictures in total.
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