Francisco Lindor earned his... whatever it is to be a Met

Mets fans finally got a Francisco Lindor game.

Lindor has had his production and injury issues in his first summer in Queens, and first impressions in New York can be awfully hard to overcome. It’s not like anyone in the Tri-State area thinks anything that happened in Cleveland counts. But three home runs to beat the Yankees on Sunday night, and doing so while putting a thumb in the eye of the Yanks, makes for a long-lasting Mets memory. Do Mets earn their pinstripes, too? What are the qualifications for that? Do you just have to take out your wang in the bullpen like David Cone allegedly did or take down a pile of coke to get your Mets pinstripes? Seems apt.

Lindor upped the spice in the Subway Series after his second homer of the evening, when he shared his thoughts with Giancarlo Stanton about the Yanks’ supposed signaling of pitches during Saturday night’s game. Stanton returned the favor when he tied the game on a homer and was rounding second in front of Lindor, and as brave as Lindor is, that’s something of a matchup problem for him.

But he answered in the right way in the 8th. The kicker is that the way both teams are going, neither is headed to the playoffs and this night might be all they have for the season, which won’t sit very well with Yankees fans. Which is great. We also get this image, which is pretty iconic.

Lindor’s .750 OPS isn’t what the Mets traded for or extended to one of the biggest contracts in the game, but they and their fans will see the replays of last night, when Lindor set Queens alight and had the stadium shaking as what will follow in the seasons to come. Lindor was made for New York, it’ll happen eventually. This may be just a glimpse.