Francisco Lindor gave the Mets a reason to believe

MILWAUKEE — Francisco Lindor is a great player. Yeah, you might think it is obvious, but it just felt like the proper moment to reiterate it.Scream it, if you could.

Get a darn skywriter in the air to punctuate it for all to see. For much of Game 3, the Mets had Jose Quintana’s changeup and moxie and Lindor on both sides of the ball providing a mission statement to his genius.It is more than that when you have the serenity and temerity to do it all at this time of year. The Mets went to the ninth inning with as much hope as a guy sinking in quicksand holding an anvil.

Two runs down is not a mountain.But it felt like one with the Mets three outs from winter. That they are going to Philadelphia instead for the Division Series speaks to a whole team.

To an incredible fortitude.To Pete Alonso finally delivering a hit the Mets waited a whole season for and Edwin Diaz never giving the Brewers another run in the seventh — or the eighth.

And David Peterson in the ninth. But right there in Mets 4, Brewers 2, in Game 3 to win this Division Series, is a moment when you must believe something good can still happen in an impossible moment. It takes a great player. The Brewers were bringing in Devin Williams, who not only is on the short list of best closers on the planet but had only enhanced that Tuesday night in Game 2 with 10 pitches of such utter 1-2-3 dominance that it felt like the Mets were on a 90-second plan to get the game over. So when Lindor led off the ninth, the need for a reason to believe was, well, everything.The Mets had two hits at that moment and — let me do that tally here — it was by Lindor leading off the game with a double and Lindor’s two-out single in the third.

They had managed just one baserunner since via a Jesse Winkler hit by pitch. American Family Field, swelled to nearly 42,000 yellow-towel-waving screamers, had been testing decibel levels since Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick had homered on consecutive Jose Butto pitches in...