ATLANTA — Francisco Lindor spoke a lot Monday.

Words were necessary after Edwin Diaz coughed up a three-run lead in the chaotic bottom of the eighth inning of the doubleheader opener.

The Braves scored four points in the frame, had taken the lead and were three outs away from completing a stunning comeback.

Lindor remembers using one word repeatedly in the dugout before the ninth.

“Keep fighting. Just fight. Fight. Fight. Fight,” Lindor would say later. “We have to play 27 zeros.”

After the 27th out, the Mets’ unofficial captain addressed a victorious clubhouse that had to postpone the celebration and play nine more innings.

“Keep fighting,” Lindor told his teammates, according to Tylor Megill. “It’s all we’ve done all year.”

The words matter from an MVP candidate who carried the team on his back all season until his back gave out — and now does so again through the pain.

But louder was the swing.

Of course it was Lindor.

It was, of course, the face and mouth of the team that stepped up to the plate in the ninth inning with a one-run deficit and turned it into a one-run lead.

Of course, it was Lindor, whose back hurts when he bends over, who went down and got a low curveball from Pierce Johnson and blasted it over the center field wall at Truist Park for the two-run home run that sent the Mets to the field sent. postseason and sent his teammates into hysterics.

The Mets poured out of the dugout.

Mark Vientos waved a towel.

Jesse Winker demanded an air hit.

A celebrating Starling Marte, who had previously gone one at bat, was nearly knocked onto the basepaths.

Amid the harrowing scene was a stoic Lindor.

He ran hard out of the penalty area, unsure if the ball would have the distance.

He watched as he pulled past the wall and the glove of Michael Harris II, and “Mr. Smile’ didn’t break one and didn’t slow his pace.

He kept running, the effort of preparing for these games almost overshadowing the joy such swings gave him.

“My back hurts. I’m tired,” Lindor said of his reserved response. “I know how good Atlanta is.”

Not good enough in the first game of the doubleheader, the Mets ultimately held onto a lead in the stirring, 8-7 victory over the Braves that sent his team to the postseason.

The Mets’ best player played like this in their biggest game.

He played nine innings of shortstop because of the pain that had forced him to sit eight straight games.

He hit an RBI single in the eighth inning as part of a six-run uprising.

He saw Diaz collapse, guided his team through the collapse and then stole the game back.

Lindor was looking for something over the plate and got it, launching his 33rd and final home run of the season, allowing the Mets to exhale and him to finally take a seat and rest for the second game.

Shohei Ohtani may have the National League MVP locked up, but there’s no doubt who the Mets MVP is, both on and off the field.

“His leadership is unreal,” Megill said. “We follow him.”