CHICAGO — With one blow on a perfect early autumn night, a Francisco Lindor blast made all kinds of history. For the Mets, though, there remains only one kind of history to make — the one that lands them in the postseason.
The Mets helped themselves in that regard in knocking off the Cubs 8-5 on Thursday behind another veteranlike outing from dynamic rookie righty Nolan McLean, who struck out a career-high 11 batters and scattered five Chicago runs while pitching with a sizable lead. New York escaped the key series at Wrigley Field with a big series win.
Still, with three games to go, the Mets haven’t locked down anything.
“We’ve got to go out there and take care of business,” Lindor said. “The teams that are out there fighting for the playoffs are really good teams, so we have to go out there and get it done.”
McLean got plenty of help in a drama-free win at a time when nothing has been easy for the Mets. Lindor’s 30th homer in the third pushed New York’s early advantage to 3-0, and Brett Baty’s three-run shot in the fourth broke the game open.
Next up is Miami, and the Mets will fly to Florida still in control of their own fate in the race for the National League’s last wild-card spot. New York leads Cincinnati by one game and Arizona by two, but the Mets would lose a tiebreaker against either club should they finish with identical regular-season records.
“You want to stay alive,” Lindor said. “We’re in a position right now where we control our own destiny. But we’ve got to go take care of business. The Marlins have played as well, and we know that.”
Lindor’s homer was notable for several reasons. Lindor, who has swiped 31 bases this season, now has his second career 30-30 season, making him just the second primary shortstop to have two such campaigns, according to ESPN Research. Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. was the first.
In addition, Lindor joins Mets star Juan Soto in this season’s 30-30 club, making them just the third pair of teammates to do it in the same season. The others were the Mets’ Howard Johnson and Darryl Strawberry (1987) and the Rockies’ Dante Bichette and Ellis Burks (1996).
As usual, Lindor deflected from his role in his own accomplishments.
“I’m blessed to be around good teammates, people that are elite, are at the top of what they do,” Lindor said. “When it comes to me, I’m surrounded by good teammates, good hitting coaches, and they try to find that edge every single day.”
This also marks Lindor’s sixth 30-homer season, moving him past Cubs legend Ernie Banks for the most such campaigns by a shortstop. Lindor now trails only Alex Rodriguez, who had seven.
Finally, Lindor joins Soto and Pete Alonso for the Mets in the 30-home run club, the first time in the 64-year history of the Mets that they’ve had three players hit that mark.
“It’s pretty impressive,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It goes to show you the type of players that we’ve got here. They’ve been carrying us for pretty much a whole year.”
McLean may have debuted too late in the season to mount a real push for NL Rookie of the Year, but if he had started earlier, he’d be a front-runner. McLean is now 5-1 over eight starts since his promotion with a miniscule 2.06 ERA. The Mets, whose second-half pitching struggles have caused all sorts of headaches for their fans, are 6-2 in his starts. The other Mets starters are a combined 6-12 since McLean’s first start on Aug. 16.
“I’m just trying to keep the game plan as different as possible, as many times as I can,” said McLean, who used all six of the pitches in his arsenal through the outing. “Just playing that cat-and-mouse game constantly, which I think is important.”
New York’s season-ending series against the Marlins starts Friday, while the Reds finish at Milwaukee, and Arizona visits San Diego.
With a couple more nights like Thursday, the Mets hope to head to Los Angeles to play the NL West champion Dodgers in a wild-card series, a rematch of last year’s scintillating National League Championship Series. But first there is business to attend to in South Florida.
“You walk away from this series feeling good obviously, but you still got to go out there and take care of business in Miami,” Mendoza said. “We’re in this position, but we’re still in control.”