Mets keep winning as Francisco Lindor's sore back mends
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor in the dugout during the fifth inning of a game against the Phillies at Citi Field on Thursday. Credit: Noah K. Murray
We know the steps to this dance, right?
The Mets say a player has some minor ailment, and the days tick by as he stays off the injured list. Eventually, someone admits that it’s more serious than originally believed, so an IL stint is warranted. Weeks pass, then months. And then no one ever hears from him again (more or less).
It’s the Ballad of Jed Lowrie, but we’ve seen it happen to Jacob deGrom and Yoenis Cespedes and, in its most tragic form, David Wright. It’s long been a dark joke around these parts — the phrase “day-to-day” might as well be stamped on the football Lucy pulls away from Charlie Brown. So, of course, the news that Francisco Lindor was day-to-day with a back injury sent a chill down the spine of the entire fan base.
But what was that we saw on a sun-speckled Friday afternoon at Citi Field?
Certainly, it couldn’t be . . .
Yup. The Mets’ MVP candidate strode to the cage with two bats in hand, lined up on the right side of the plate, laid down a few bunts and took a few hacks.
“Hey, Francisco, how are you feeling?’’
“Feeling great,” he responded, jogging away with some semblance of agility.
Before that, Carlos Mendoza didn’t rule out the possibility that Lindor will be available as soon as Saturday. Is there a temptation to keep resting him if the Mets open up a bigger cushion in the wild-card race?
“He’s Francisco Lindor,” he said. “We’re talking about a potential MVP here. When he says he’s ready to go, it doesn’t matter where we’re at. He’s in the lineup.”
President of baseball operations David Stearns was asked flat out if he thinks we’ll see Lindor again this year. He didn’t even let the question end before responding, “Yeah. Yeah.”
But wait, there’s more. Mendoza added that Kodai Senga will throw 30 to 35 pitches in Triple-A on Saturday, and as long as everything goes to plan, he’ll be ready to pitch for the Mets on Friday. He won’t be fully stretched out by then, and Senga has pitched only 5 1⁄3 major-league innings this season, but that conceivably means they’ll be getting back their ace just in time for the playoffs.
So now you could have a guy who finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting last year joining a rotation that came into Friday 8-1 with a 1.92 ERA in September.
This is all remarkably good news for a team that has had its share of catastrophic injuries and devastating late-season swoons. It’s also building on four months beset with atypical positivity. After falling 11 games under .500 at 24-35, they entered Friday at 85-68, a season-high 17 games over .500. Since that low-water mark on June 2, they had gone 61-33, and their .649 winning percentage in that span was the best in the majors.
Add to that: Despite playing without Lindor, Thursday marked the first time in franchise history that they scored at least 10 runs in three straight games. (Informed of that stat, Pete Alonso replied, “Sick.”) The Mets entered Friday with 16 victories in their last 20 games, outscoring opponents 104-50 in the process.
“We’ve done a great job responding to the challenge,” Alonso said Thursday night. “We’ve had that trust and belief in each other all year.”
All of this flips the old Mets script. In recent days, Mendoza’s Lindor updates have been vague at best. And despite a clean MRI and CT scan, Lindor has walked gingerly — his usual smile a little more strained than usual.
Despite every assurance otherwise, it certainly felt as if this injury was more severe than the team was letting on. After all, this is a guy who played through a broken finger in 2022 and put together a 30-30 season in 2023 while quietly nursing a bone spur in his right elbow that required offseason surgery. That was the season he stayed up with his wife, who gave birth at 5:30 a.m., and came in to pinch hit in the ninth inning later that night. He doesn’t sit unless he’s really, really hurt.
But no, it looks as if Lindor might actually be OK. It looks as if Senga might be a factor if they play in October. But it also looks as if this team is prepared to survive regardless of whether those two other things come to pass.
“It doesn’t come down to one individual,” Alonso said Wednesday. “This is a group effort. I think all of us have risen to the occasion. I think that we’ve been playing great baseball. I mean obviously, we miss him because Paco [Lindor] is just an unbelievable player on both sides of the ball. It’s the task we have to deal with and we hope he has a super-swift and speedy recovery. In the meantime, the boys will hold it down.”
Of course Alonso praises the group. Of course he thinks they can overcome adversity. And of course he thinks Lindor will be back soon but that the Mets will manage without him for however long he needs.
That’s not surprising. No, the surprising part is that after The Ballad of Jed Lowrie and Jacob deGrom and Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright, we might just be forced to believe him.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
