Mets' Francisco Lindor to undergo MRI on back after exiting loss to Phillies

PHILADELPHIA — Here’s what you need to know about the state of the Mets: Their latest gut-wrenching defeat, a 2-1 loss to the Phillies on Sunday on J.T. Realmuto’s walk-off single against Edwin Diaz — a brutal finish at a time of year when every game feels like a must-win — wasn’t even their worst development of the day.

Francisco Lindor talked his way into the starting lineup, departed after one inning because his back bothered him too much and got scheduled for an MRI on Monday.

His back, it turns out, bothered him for a couple of weeks before flaring up most significantly Friday. A second early exit in three days — as well as the Mets’ first consecutive losses in more than a month — yielded a significant shift in tone surrounding Lindor, from cautiously optimistic to somber and uncertain.

“If the images show something a little bit on the higher-risk [side], then yeah, it’s going to be valuable to take more than a couple days off,” Lindor said. “If it’s something that we think can be healed up pretty quick, then maybe a day or two. As of right now, I believe I’m day-to-day.”

The Mets (81-68) have 13 games in 14 days remaining in the regular season. They are tied with Atlanta for the final wild-card berth in the National League.

Lindor added that he doesn’t know why the back became a problem originally.

“You play with pains here and there,” said Lindor, who had played in every game this season before sitting out Saturday. “I’ve been playing with it for a while now. As an athlete, you understand that you depend on your body and there’s going to be times that your body is not 100% and you gotta continue to go.

“That’s how I felt the whole entire time [for] probably a week and a half, almost two weeks. My body wasn’t feeling where I wanted it to be, but at the end of the day, I understand that comes with the territory of being a professional athlete and depending on your body. You gotta find a way to grind through it and hopefully you’re OK at the end of the day.

“And I was. I was fine. It was just that one play that aggravated it a little bit too much. And [Saturday] I thought I felt better. [Sunday] coming in, I felt better as well. So I was making gains. Just that one play again. It wasn’t even stepping on the base. It was just — when it goes, it goes.”

That last part was new information. The Mets previously framed Lindor’s injury as having occurred when he stepped on the second-base bag during an awkward baserunning sequence in the opener against the Phillies on Friday.

Now it’s more nebulous — and potentially more serious.

“When you have back problems or a back injury, the back pretty much controls your whole entire body,” Lindor said. “Anything can make it be a little aggravated. That’s where I’m at right now.”

David Peterson said: “I know he’s been grinding through it. The most important thing is for him to get himself right.”

The Mets delayed finalizing a lineup Sunday until Lindor went through an extensive pregame routine: treatment, taking swings in the indoor batting cage, running lightly on the field. After Lindor, manager Carlos Mendoza and athletic trainer Joe Golia chatted on the field during batting practice, they decided Lindor was good to go — or good enough to go.

That lasted about a minute into the game. Lindor dropped a leadoff single into center, but after his first couple of steps toward first base, he realized he was not OK.

He signaled to the Mets to get Luisangel Acuna warmed up. He took diminished leads off first. He was “a little timid,” in his words, on a high throw to first from shortstop in the bottom of the inning.

Acuna replaced him in the second.

“Same stuff he’s dealing with,” Mendoza said.

Peterson (7 2⁄3 innings, four hits) and Cristopher Sanchez (seven innings-plus, six hits) were efficient equals most of the afternoon. The teams traded runs in the eighth, with the Mets scoring on Tyrone Taylor’s homer and the Phillies (90-59) striking back with back-to-back doubles by Weston Wilson and Buddy Kennedy.

Moments before the game ended, Diaz was ahead of Realmuto 0-and-2, a pitch away from sending it to extra innings. He put a 99-mph fastball on the outer edge of the plate, a little lower than he wanted. Realmuto lined it to right-centerfield to drive in Nick Castellanos (single, steal) from second.

The Mets considered walking Realmuto to bring up likely pinch hitter Brandon Marsh.

“We talked about it, but it’s Edwin Diaz,” Mendoza said.

The Phillies won the series despite leading after only four innings across the three games.

The Mets scored five runs in what effectively was two games without Lindor.

“When he’s not in the lineup, you see it,” Mendoza said. “But we still got a good lineup. We still got good players.”

Diaz said: “We feel bad. We feel badly because we know we need him. But at the same time, we gotta go out and compete. We support him. We have his back.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

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.