Francisco Lindor was placed on the Mets’ 10-day injured list on Thursday due to a left calf strain, and the team now has a loose idea about how long the All-Star shortstop may be out of action. Manager Carlos Mendoza and president of baseball operations David Stearns told reporters (including the New York Post’s Jake Nisse) yesterday that Lindor will be in a walking boot for the next week, and will be fully re-evaluated in three weeks’ time.
If all goes well, Lindor projects to be back in the Mets’ lineup before the end of May. Supposing that Lindor is given the green light in mid-May after his three-week shutdown, he’ll need at least a week of baseball activities and workouts to bring him back up to speed, plus at least a couple of rehab games.
This is just the best-case scenario, however. A more concrete timeline can’t be established until after Lindor is re-evaluated, and it is certainly possible that his calf might still be sore after three weeks’ time. Calf injuries have been known to linger or even to be season-threatening in more severe cases, though there isn’t any sign that Lindor’s issue is anything that serious.
It has already been an injury-marred season for Lindor, as he missed most of Spring Training due to hamate bone surgery. Lindor was able to make it back and play a few Grapefruit League games before the end of camp and avoided a season-opening stint on the injured list, yet it seems like the missed time had an impact. Lindor has a modest .226/.314/.355 slash line over his first 105 plate appearances, far below his usual standard.
Even if Lindor is able to return by late May, losing their star shortstop for “only” a month is still a major blow for the struggling Mets to try and overcome. New York has a dismal 9-17 record and is already 9.5 games behind the Braves for first place in the NL East. Virtually the entire Mets lineup is off to a collective slow start at the plate, and the loss of Juan Soto (to a calf strain of his own) for just shy of three weeks only worsened the offensive power outage.
Ronny Mauricio probably isn’t the answer to these batting woes, as Mauricio has hit only .236/.294/.357 over 303 career plate appearances in the majors. However, Mauricio is a former top prospect who has a history of crushing Triple-A pitching, so he’ll get another chance to break out as the expected regular shortstop in Lindor’s absence.
