Francisco Lindor has been waiting for this for years

I wish Major League Baseball would hand out its MVP awards the same way high school movies dramatize the coronation of a prom queen – all the students watch in rapture while an adult on stage with a microphone says the protagonist's name calls. It would be obvious how the NL MVP would appear in any coming-of-age movie worth its salt: Shohei Ohtani humbly breaking off a piece of his tiara to give it to Francisco Lindor because he can't bring himself to do it , to soak up the entirety of the recognition for yourself.

Lindor's all-around success at the plate and at shortstop this season had earned him an undisputed spot as the National League's second most valuable player long before Wednesday. And if that wasn't already the case, his place in the hearts of Mets fans was cemented by the skin-saving sock dolager he floated in the ninth inning in Atlanta to help New York secure a playoff spot the day after the so-called last day of the season. But I don't know if anything he's done so far in his career can match his cathartic triumph toward the end of one of the most excruciating innings in recent playoff history – one that allowed the Mets to knock off the Phillies and get one Travel to the playoffs to earn the NLCS.

Through five innings of Game 4 in Flushing, the Phillies led 1-0, but not for lack of threats from New York. Philly starter Ranger Suarez was able to escape not one, but two scratches He was loaded with bases in the first two innings and was barely able to maintain his shutout until manager Rob Thomson brought up the hook with two on and one out in the fifth inning. Jeff Hoffman escaped with his narrow lead intact, but a long pause in the dugout during a half-inning in which three different Mets took the mound appeared to short-circuit his arm. JD Martinez hit a single. Starling Marte took one for the team. Tyrone Taylor left. Francisco Alvarez scored at home on a fielder's choice.

With Lindor at the plate, Thomson reached into his bullpen and inserted Carlos Estévez, who had thrown 26 pitches in an eighth inning of Game 3, which had taken place less than 24 hours earlier. Estévez had also allowed a double to the batter he was scheduled to face. It was the final misstep Thomson would make that season.

It took Estévez four blistering fastballs to realize he wasn't destined to find the redemption he sought. With the score 2-1, Lindor finished flush and sent the ball right to center where it traveled farther and farther until it landed behind the fence, sending the crowd into an uproar.

As all of Lindor's teammates pushed him to second in the aftermath of Edwin Diaz's strikeout at the end of the series, I remembered a Mets-Phillies game I attended in the middle of the Hot Vax Summer of 2021 – a time of great optimism for everyone But the new New York Lindor. The Mets used a start by Jacob deGrom to improve to 41-32 with a walk-off sacrifice fly. But on the second-to-last at-bat of the game, with the bases loaded and the score tied, Lindor struck out weakly on an 86 mph pitch that sank out of the zone. This came just months after he signed a ten-year, $341 million contract; He went 0-for-5 that day and a lot of people booed him. I thought of all the nice things I had heard about “Mr. “Smile” when he was back in Cleveland – that, for example, he was the only one who specifically learned in advance the names of the young friends who were with him on “Kids” Day, so he could be like Santa Claus or like when they first met on the field. He had been a hero back then, someone who could hit a momentum-changing grand slam against a hated opponent in the Division Series. It all felt very far away.

Maybe you remember what came next. Lindor returned to form in 2022 as the Mets shocked everyone, first with 101 wins and then with an abrupt exit from the playoffs. The team slipped in 2023, but not because its production took any hit. In 2024, he established himself as better than ever – if not year everyone meaning of the word. Lindor is dealing with a completely different kind of battle today: His back is screaming at him to stop playing baseball for a while. An injury sustained about a month ago forced Lindor to miss a key portion of the regular season, and the medical staff has their hands full trying to keep him in the lineup these playoffs. The toll it took was perhaps visible as he rounded the bases after the grand slam – ice-cold stoicism in what was supposed to be the most adrenaline-pumping moment of his life. But that might be one of the tools that allowed him to come to the plate in the first place.

I can't honestly say that I would rather see nine innings from Lindor than four at-bats from Ohtani in a normal game, but nothing felt more “MVP” than Lindor's series-winning shot. On a night when batsmen kept coming up short, a superstar fighting through pain delivered a shot that no one will forget – the reverberations of which will be felt throughout the next week and perhaps beyond. Besides, who needs another custom trophy when you're King of New York?