Mets star Francisco Lindor hoping to snap out of it already

DENVER — Among the Mets hitters who have taken a significant step back this season, contributing to the overall offensive regression that is a primary reason for their underwhelming record, is the highest-paid one: Francisco Lindor.

Entering a weekend series against the Rockies, he was batting .226 with a .302 on-base percentage and .407 slugging percentage — a caliber of bottom-line output that registered as slightly worse than the major-league average.

Last year, those final numbers were .270, .339 and .449, not only solidly above average relative to the rest of baseball but also better than his career norm.

So far, this has looked more like Lindor’s messy Mets debut season than the impressive follow-up, when he earned down-ballot National League MVP votes.

“It has been a constant fight of me trying to get to the high part of the season and staying on that high,” Lindor said this week. “Once I find it, I haven’t been able to stay on that high for a long time. It’ll be one or two days, then I go back to two days without getting a hit. Then I go find it again.  

“It’s just a matter of being a little more consistent, finding the consistency. Once I find the consistency, it’s going to feel and look probably a little bit better than it looks right now. I feel like, yeah, I gotta get better.”

Nicknamed Mr. Smile, Lindor usually can convince himself to flash those pearly whites during interviews amid even the Mets’ roughest of stretches. In speaking about his own offensive performance, he didn’t bother.

Hitting is hard in general and harder for him lately. He has not had a good time.

“Sometimes he — I don’t want to say he overthinks it. But sometimes you can care too much,” manager Buck Showalter said, noting he chatted with Lindor on the subject in his office Thursday. “He’s just chasing perfection every day. He’s really hard on himself . . . He cares so much. Chasing perfection can be dangerous sometimes. But what are you going to do? Tell him not to?”

Showalter — an ardent defender of his veteran players especially — hasn’t moved Lindor from the top of the order. He has batted second or third in all 52 games, including the opener against the Rockies.

The manager has pointed out repeatedly, and did so again this week, that Lindor ranks high in a couple of categories. And that is true. He entered play Friday tied for seventh in the NL in RBIs (34 and on pace for more than 100) and tied for fifth in doubles (15).

But those numbers matter only so much when the overall production isn’t there.

“He’s driving in a lot of runs for us and playing a good shortstop,” Showalter said, “and had a hit his last time up, so he’s on the uptick.”

A problem: Lindor has struck out in a personal-high 23% of his plate appearances. Last year, he did so 18.8% of the time. In his career, 15.6%.

There are multiple causes, Lindor said. He has had some trouble identifying pitches — reading the spin of the ball out of a pitcher’s hand, knowing where it will end up by the time it gets to the plate — but perhaps more importantly has been trying too hard, he said.

That has meant swinging at pitches he should not swing at.

“It’s hard to swing at bad pitches and get hits,” Lindor said. “It’s also a staying-within-myself approach. When you try to do a little too much, the decision-making of swinging or not has to happen a little sooner. Most of the time, you start swinging at bad pitches.

“I’m trying to find it. It’s been a fight. It’s part of the process. That’s the way the season is laying out. Hopefully it turns around quickly.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.