Indians Dynamic Young Superstar SS Has Everyone Smiling

It’s mature talk for a young player, one who went from hitting .205 back on July 7th to coming into Thursday’s contest hitting .317 with nine homers and 41 RBI.

“I wasn’t myself, I was trying to do a little too much,” Lindor said.

“(I was) doing things I wasn’t supposed to do in at-bats. The success I’ve been having, (Jason) Kip(nis) in front of me, (Michael) Brantley behind me, that’s been helping me a lot.”

His presence and play has been a reason for the teams’ major turnaround to being a wild card contender, just three games back in the loss column.

He’s gone from being a somewhat shy kid just finding his way in a locker room which at the time boasted a number of vets to a fun-loving guy who is having a blast like the last two weeks of his senior year of high school.

“Just be myself, learn from everybody else, learn from my mistakes, and keep putting in the work,” Lindor said. “Eventually it was going to happen.”

Manager Terry Francona has said more than once that the maturity of Lindor, and the way he’s come out of his shell, has reminded him of when Dustin Pedroia arrived with the Red Sox in 2006 when Francona was the team’s manager.

Pedrioa also took some time to get acclimated to playing in the Majors, but once he got into a groove, he became a superstar. Lindor is getting to that point even faster, as he leads all American League rookies in batting average.

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