After exiting Wednesday’s win over the Minnesota Twins early with left calf tightness, the Mets are placing star shortstop Francisco Lindor on the 10-day injured list with a left calf strain.
In a corresponding move, New York is recalling Ronny Mauricio from Triple-A Syracuse.
Additionally, RHP Christian Scott is being recalled and will start Thursday’s game; RHP Austin Warren was optioned to Triple-A following last night’s game.
Lindor appeared to grimace while rounding third base in the fourth inning on Wednesday before sliding safely feet first into home plate. The shortstop headed straight to the tunnel and did not return to the field for the top of the fifth inning, as Bo Bichette moved to shortstop and Brett Baty entered to play third base.
Manager Carlos Mendoza spoke with reporters Thursday ahead of the game to discuss Lindor’s injury, saying that the team will be without him “for a while.”
“We still have multiple people looking at the imaging and the MRI and all that. We do know, obviously there’s the injury there, and he’s going to be down for quite a bit here,” Mendoza said. “I don’t think we are anticipating something like, we knew right away with Juan [Soto] that it was kind of like the best-case scenario and it was going to be on the short side of things. I don’t think we’re dealing with the same thing here.”
Mendoza added: “It’s hard to put a timetable. Because again, we got to wait. We do know that he’s going to be down for a while.”
The manager was also asked what the plan is defensively — either keeping Bichette at third and having Mauricio at shortstop, or having Bichette to move back to his old position in some capacity. He reiterated the loose plan mentioned after Wednesday’s game, saying they will keep Bichette at third and have Mauricio take over as the starting shortstop.
“We could, but Mauricio is going to get an opportunity here to play,” Mendoza said. “But yeah, depending on matchups, off days for some of the guys, Bo will slide over at times. But in the meantime, Mauricio is going to get a majority of the opportunities here at shortstop.”
Mendoza then made it clear Mauricio could start against left-handed pitching going forward, with the occasional matchup change when needed. Mauricio owns a career .134 batting average against left-handers, going 11-for-82 over 42 games.
“He’ll get some chances there,” Mendoza said. “I’m going to pick what we consider good matchups for him from that side of the plate. But yeah, he’ll start against lefties. But I will also not hesitate, if the game’s on the line and it’s a tough left-on-right matchup there and I have a better option on the bench, I’ll probably shoot that bullet if I feel like we need to.
“I feel like it’ll be case-by-case, but he’ll face lefties.”
It had been another slow start to the season for Lindor, but the injury comes at a time when it looked like he was turning a corner. Over his last seven games, Lindor was slashing .360/.386/.640 with two home runs, five RBI, a walk, and a stolen base. Through 24 games overall, Lindor has a .669 OPS, with all his home runs and RBI coming in the last seven games.
Mauricio, who has played in just two big league games this season (including his pinch-hit walk-off on April 7), is slashing .293/.349/.638 with a .987 OPS across 15 games in Triple-A. The 25-year-old is coming off his best game of the season on April 21, when he smashed three home runs to bring his season total to six and his RBI total to 13.
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