Lindor expects to return soon after breaking right pinky toe

LOS ANGELES — A number of hours after taking an 89 mph Tony Gonsolin slider off his proper foot Wednesday, breaking his pinky toe, Francisco Lindor sat on the Mets’ group bus again to the lodge and lobbied supervisor Carlos Mendoza to let him preserve enjoying. When Mendoza mentioned no, Lindor implored him to rethink the following day.

“OK, I’m going to offer you till tomorrow morning,” Mendoza instructed him. “However the reply’s going to be the identical.”

The fact, as Mendoza mentioned later, is that Lindor obtained “comparatively excellent news” about his toe on Thursday morning. The bone is damaged, however not on the joint, which makes it purely a ache tolerance challenge. Though Lindor was certainly out of the lineup for the Mets’ sequence finale towards the Dodgers, he averted the injured listing and expects to return inside a number of days.

“It’s only a matter of tolerating the ache,” Lindor mentioned. “So hopefully, I’m robust sufficient to play sooner somewhat than later.”

Instantly upon taking the Gonsolin slider off his foot to guide off Wednesday’s 6-1 win over Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, Lindor collapsed to the bottom. He shortly regained his footing and remained within the recreation, albeit in a state of clear discomfort. He mentioned he was in “loads” of ache. Nonetheless, by the center innings, Lindor felt nicely sufficient to harbor hope that nothing was damaged.

It was not till postgame, when he took off his sock to endure an X-ray, that Lindor noticed the numerous bruising and realized one thing was critically flawed. The X-ray confirmed the break.

“It hurts,” Lindor mentioned the following morning. “With sneakers, it hurts just a little bit extra [than] barefoot. I awoke, I used to be like, ‘OK, I don’t really feel unhealthy.’ As quickly as I placed on my sneakers, it was not good.”

For so long as Lindor stays sidelined, rookie Luisangel Acuña will begin at shortstop. The group may also give Ronny Mauricio apply reps on the place, however Mauricio is recovering from a number of knee surgical procedures and hasn’t recurrently performed brief since 2023.

Neither of them can totally exchange Lindor, the 2024 Nationwide League MVP runner-up who was having fun with one other regular season as one of many recreation’s high all-around shortstops. In 61 video games, Lindor is batting .279/.353/.490 with 14 dwelling runs and 11 stolen bases.

Lindor hopes the harm proves just like what he endured in 2022, when he by accident shut a lodge door on his proper center finger, fracturing the digit. He wound up lacking just one recreation, although Lindor did fall right into a stoop that lasted a number of weeks.

“I feel it’s going to be a nagging factor,” Lindor mentioned of his toe. “It’s a bone, it’s a damaged bone. I feel it takes six weeks for a bone to be totally healed. Three years in the past, I did my finger right here, and it nonetheless hurts at occasions. It’s a part of relying in your physique. As skilled athletes, that’s stuff we undergo. That is what God needed this week, and we’ll cope with that. It might have been worse.”

Lindor plans to obtain each day remedy on his toe and converse recurrently with Mendoza about his situation.

“The factor with Francisco is he is aware of his physique higher than everyone,” the supervisor mentioned. “They’ve received a superb feeling about one another — not solely Francisco figuring out himself, however the trainers figuring out the participant, and the participant trusting the medical workers. I feel there’s loads of confidence, loads of belief on each ends, and we’ll take it daily.”