{"id":657869,"date":"2026-04-02T01:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T01:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657869\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T01:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T01:52:19","slug":"lindors-mental-mistakes-cost-mets-in-loss-to-cardinals-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657869\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindor’s mental mistakes cost Mets in loss to Cardinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS —Francisco Lindor<\/a> made a couple of uncharacteristic mental mistakes Wednesday, and the second one certainly cost the New York Mets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The star shortstop lost track of the outs on defense in the opening inning and got picked off first base in the sixth – right before teammate Juan Soto<\/a> homered. The slumping Mets stranded 11 runners and lost 2-1 to theSt. Louis Cardinals<\/a>in 11 innings.<\/p>\n

Lindor reached base in the sixth on a one-out error by third baseman Nolan Gorman<\/a>, but the leadoff hitter wandered too far off the bag and was fiddling with his gloves when he was easily picked off by St. Louis starter Matthew Liberatore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I should have been better,” Lindor said.<\/p>\n

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza credited the Cardinals with making a good move to nab Lindor.<\/p>\n

“They got us there,” Mendoza said. “He was going to go. They got us with a quick step-off there. I wouldn’t consider that one there a mental mistake. He was trying to get some momentum there and being aggressive.”<\/p>\n

Three pitches later, Soto hit a soaring fly that landed just over the right-field fence inside the foul pole for a solo home run.<\/p>\n

In the first inning, Lindor failed to execute a potential double play when he forgot how many outs there were.<\/p>\n

With one out and Iv\u00e1n Herrera<\/a> on first, left-handed-hitting Alec Burleson<\/a> hit a grounder to Lindor at shortstop. Positioned near second base, Lindor touched the bag but then headed toward the dugout instead of throwing to first to retire Burleson as well.<\/p>\n

By the time Lindor realized his mistake, it was too late. New York starter Freddy Peralta<\/a> struck out the next batter to end the inning.<\/p>\n

“I forgot the outs,” Lindor said. “I made a mistake that probably cost Peralta an extra inning because he had to throw more pitches after that. It’s inexcusable. He probably could have gone six, seven innings. I just forgot the outs. I realized there was just one out. Honest mistake.”<\/p>\n

Mendoza didn’t cover for Lindor.<\/p>\n

“There’s no excuses,” Mendoza said. “He’ll be the first one that tells you that. That can’t happen. He knows. He was pretty (ticked) when he came in. Peralta did a good job picking him up and finishing that inning.”<\/p>\n

New York (3-3) went 1 for 29 with runners in scoring position during the three-game series, including 0 for 11 in the finale.<\/p>\n

“Hats off to them,” Lindor said. “They executed their pitches. They played better. I’ve got to be better, and go out there and win the next series.”<\/p>\n

The Mets have totaled 12 runs in their last five games after scoring 11 on opening day against Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

“Good hitters right now for a couple of games, they’re not getting it done,” Mendoza said.<\/p>\n

Lindor remains optimistic the Mets will put everything together.<\/p>\n

“I still believe in what we have,” he said. “We have a good team. We are a couple of pitches away from continuing to get the ball rolling on our side.”<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS —Francisco Lindor made a couple of uncharacteristic mental mistakes Wednesday, and the second one certainly cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[84017,5,649,40369,101,4,1690,61,169,2548,4203],"class_list":{"0":"post-657869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-84017","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-lindor-francisco","12":"tag-mets","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-mets","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkmets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116332615777935862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}