SAN DIEGO — Francisco Lindor’s best season for the Mets is only improving, at a time the team needs him most.
The star shortstop is on base almost every night and turning play after play defensively, but few things in baseball garner more attention than the long ball and Lindor has that going for him too.
Saturday night he slugged two home runs, including a grand slam, in leading a 7-1 rebound victory over the Padres at Petco Park.
The two blasts tied Lindor for the team lead in homers (Pete Alonso also has 27) and helped position the Mets to play for a series victory on Sunday.
Lindor’s grand slam, batting left-handed against Michael King in the fourth elicited “M-V-P” chants from the large contingent of Mets fans in the ballpark.
That same chant was heard in the seventh after Lindor again homered, this time batting right-handed.
Shohei Ohtani, who has a chance to become the first 50/50 player (homers and stolen bases) in MLB history might have something to say about Lindor claiming the MVP award, but it could be a spirited competition over these final five weeks.
The Mets, in their 63rd season of existence, have never had an MVP winner.
The Mets (68-62) won for the third time in four games and remained 2 ½ games behind Atlanta for the NL’s third wild card.
David Peterson had a fifth straight start of allowing two earned runs or fewer.
The left-hander went 7 ¹/₃ innings and allowed one earned run on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts to lower his team-leading ERA among starting pitchers to 2.85.
The Mets needed the pitching boost a night after the bullpen was pressed into 5 ²/₃ innings of action following Paul Blackburn’s early removal with a right hand contusion created by David Peralta’s line drive.
And Lindor’s slam was a welcomed contribution after the Mets were shut out the previous night on only two hits.
Pete Alonso’s broken-bat grounder to third became an RBI double in the first inning as Machado – perhaps distracted by the barrel of Alonso’s bat flying high above him — misplayed the roller.
Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo each walked in the inning and following Alonso’s RBI double Jesse Winker drew a walk to load the bases. King escaped by striking out Starling Marte.
Lindor’s grand slam in the fourth gave the Mets a 5-0 cushion.
Marte started the rally with a two-out single before Francisco Alvarez reached on Machado’s fielding error and Jeff McNeil was plunked by a pitch.
Lindor cleared the fence in right-center for his seventh career grand slam.
King, part of the return from the Yankees in last winter’s trade that sent Juan Soto to the Bronx, lasted five innings and allowed five runs (four of which were unearned because of Machado’s error) on three hits and three walks with seven strikeouts.
Peterson didn’t allow his first hit until the fourth on Xander Bogaerts’ single.
Two innings earlier Peterson had walked Donovan Solano before Jackson Merrill hit a line drive to left that Jesse Winker snared on a dive.
Luis Arraez’s RBI groundout sliced the Mets’ lead to 5-1 in the fifth, but Peterson escaped further damage with the bases loaded by retiring Jurickson Profar.
The Padres received an infield single from Kyle Higashioka in the inning and Bryce Johnson walked before Mason McCoy singled to load the bases.
Lindor cleared the left-field fence leading off the seventh for his 19th career multi-homer game.
Harrison Bader homered in the eighth to give the Mets their seventh run.
