While the spotlight has teetered towards the late-May slump of Juan Soto, the Mets’ other franchise cornerstone hadn’t been at his best lately either.

But, like Soto, Francisco Lindor took a strong step back in the right direction on Friday as the Mets opened things up against the Rockies. Lindor homered twice in the 4-2 win — once from each side of the plate.

“My body aligned correctly,” Lindor told reporters after the game. “I’m rotating the right way from both sides.”

Brad Penner-Imagn Images

After reaching a peak of .310 on May 12, Lindor’s average had fallen to .269 after an 0-for-5 showing on Thursday. But he went 3-for-4 on Friday with the two bombs, raising his average to .278 with an .827 OPS.

Lindor did a nice job this year quieting the April-slump accusations that seem to follow him every season. He ended up batting .339/.403/.550 in the month of April, and although he’s regressed since then, he still holds a respectable .778 OPS in May. It’s largely been a strong start to the season for the dynamic shortstop who typically gets things going later in the season rather than earlier.

He got the Mets started right away against a Rockies team that heads into the last day of May with only nine total wins on its season. Facing southpaw Kyle Freeland in the first inning, Lindor blasted a fastball right down the middle over the left-center field wall at 102.5 mph off the bat. It became a 1-0 lead that the Mets would never relinquish.

With Colorado having narrowed the lead to 3-2, Lindor added an insurance bomb in the eighth. This time, it came against righty Seth Halvorsen. It left the bat at 100.6 mph.

Neither homer cleared 384 feet, but they were his 11th and 12th long balls of the season nonetheless.

Lindor has hit better from the left side of the plate this year, despite his career trends leaning slightly towards his left-handed hitting. Granted, the power splits are fairly even — in about three times as many at-bats against right-handers this year, he has three times as many home runs, with nine against righties and three against lefties. His ISO against right-handers is .206, compared to .193 against left-handers.

But against righties, Lindor is hitting .282 with a .364 OBP, and only .263 with a .295 OBP against southpaws. Of course, that’s still a fairly small sample size of 57 at-bats against lefties, and the fact that he’s shown power from both sides provides some encouragement that he’s feeling comfortable batting from either side.

For his career, he has a 125 wRC+ against lefties compared to 118 against righties. He’s struck out about 3% more often against righties, too. But clearly, he’s more than capable against both types of handedness, and he showed how locked in he can be in that respect on Friday.

Lindor is reaching some pretty sweet company for his career, too. As Mike Mayer pointed out on X, Lindor is now tied with Derek Jeter for the fifth-most home runs by a shortstop — ever.

The Mets have mostly not had to worry this season about their unofficial captain. He’s had ups and downs like anybody else, but he’s been a quite productive staple at the top of the lineup who’s helped alleviate some of Soto’s underwhelming showing. The Lindor-Soto 1-2 punch hasn’t reached its full potential quite yet, but it’s in there. And one thing’s for sure: Lindor’s putting himself in nice position to be named an All-Star as a Met for the first time this summer.