Francisco Lindor scratched from Mets' lineup for first time this season
The Mets' Francisco Lindor follows through on a swing while hitting a single against the Orioles during the fifth inning of a game on Sunday in Baltimore. Credit: AP/Julio Cortez
For the first time all season, Francisco Lindor missed a game Friday night.
He was in the original lineup for the Mets’ 7-0 loss to Atlanta but was scratched about a half-hour before first pitch because of right side soreness. On Saturday, he’ll get medical imaging to give the club a better sense of what is wrong.
“He’s a tough guy. He plays through a lot of things. He wanted to tonight,” manager Buck Showalter said. “But we’ll get some imaging and see what we’re dealing with.”
Lindor said: “I wanted to play, but I’ve been through a situation where I’ve tried to play through it and it didn’t play out in my favor. [The athletic training staff] said that was the decision we were going to make.”
A relative ironman in a modern baseball context that values regular rest, Lindor participated in all of the Mets’ first 114 games, starting 113. In the lone exception, June 17, he entered as a pinch hitter after Showalter kept him out of the lineup because he had been up most of the previous night as his wife gave birth to their second daughter.
Lindor missed more than a month with a right oblique strain in 2021 but said: “[This issue] doesn’t really compare. That one felt bad. I couldn’t take off my shirt or sneeze. Hopefully this is a day-to-day type of situation.”
Before the game, Showalter said keeping Lindor out of some games down the stretch was “something that we’re going to keep a close eye on as we go forward.” But that was in the context of rest for a player who rarely receives it.
“It’s something that as we get into September, I and we will talk about. I’m going to listen to him a little bit,” Showalter said. “He takes a lot of pride in being there for his teammates and setting an example . . . Sometimes you have to be somewhat of a protector for them, because they’re not going to do it themselves necessarily.”
Extra bases
For Saturday’s doubleheader, the Mets will start righthander Denyi Reyes in the first game and lefthander Jose Quintana in the second. They’ll have to re-add Reyes to the 40-man and active rosters. He allowed Atlanta five runs in one inning-plus in a start on May 1 . . . Luis Guillorme (right calf strain) has advanced to batting practice and light fielding drills, but Showalter said his return is “still not imminent.” He is about a week from the front end of the Mets’ initial estimate of four to six weeks.
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
