With two outs, bases loaded, and the game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, Francisco Lindor dove to his right, extended his glove backhand, and snatched a David Hamilton line drive that was headed for the gap. Not a leaping grab — a knee-in-the-dirt, full-extension dive that killed Milwaukee’s best scoring chance of the night. It was the middle chapter of a complete performance that Lindor wrote from start to finish on Tuesday, August 25 at Citi Field.
The catch that bailed out a rookie reliever
Jefry Yan had been clean on the mound when Hamilton stepped in with the bases full. The rookie reliever — who had allowed just 3 earned runs in 6.2 innings across his young big-league career — delivered, and Hamilton’s bat got all of it toward the shortstop hole. Lindor reacted, dropped, and closed his glove. Third out. Still 2-2. Yan erupted on the mound, and that reaction is what sent the clip viral.
What the video doesn’t show: a shortstop who had committed nine errors on the season, posted an Outs Above Average of -3 — the worst of his career and his only negative mark — and had spent roughly two months on the injured list with a serious left calf strain. The same guy who made five errors in his first 17 games back from that IL stint just made one of the plays of the year.
Home run No. 154 as a Met
Before the catch, Lindor had already handled the offensive side of the ledger. In the fifth inning he launched a 400-foot solo shot to tie the game at 1-1 — his 154th home run as a Met, which pulled him even with Dave Kingman for sixth place on the franchise’s all-time home run list.
The number lands harder with context. Lindor missed about two months this season. When he came back, the defense wasn’t there: five errors in 17 games, a fielding percentage that ranked him 22nd out of 25 shortstops with at least 500 innings at the position. He wasn’t the Lindor everyone remembered. The ninth-inning dive was the first clear sign that was changing.
Then came the 10th
Christopher Morel rolled one toward the plate. Hamilton’s throw went wide. And Lindor — the same Lindor who had just dug his knee into the Citi Field grass an inning earlier — crossed home plate with the 3-2 walk-off run. The guy whose line drive Hamilton almost turned into a bases-clearing hit ended up being the author of the throwing error that sealed Milwaukee’s loss. Baseball writes stories no screenwriter would dare pitch.
A weird, hot Mets team
The win pushed the Mets to 13-6 since the trade deadline — a stretch that looks even stranger next to their overall record of 60-72, last place in the NL East. A team with nothing to play for on paper has spent the last few weeks beating the team with everything to play for. The Brewers arrived at Citi Field with the best record in baseball at 81-51. They left with an extra-innings loss, handed to them in part by the same player whose grounder Lindor had robbed an inning before.
Carson Benge also contributed — his three-hit game was his 11th of the season, the most among all MLB rookies. But from first pitch to last out, this night belonged to Lindor.
