Mets Notebook: Francisco Lindor’s calf injury to sideline star for ‘quite a while’

The curse continues.

The Mets ended their losing streak at 12 games Wednesday night, but Francisco Lindor suffered an injury to his left calf in the win that will sideline him for “quite a while.” The club did not give a timeline for a return, but typically, a moderate-grade calf strain requires 6-8 weeks of rehab before a minor league assignment. Lindor is making no guarantees, but he’s hoping to be back before the All-Star break.

“I’ve got to go through the process on a daily basis, but hopefully, sooner rather than later,” Lindor said Thursday at Citi Field. “I don’t really have a timetable.”

Nor does he want one. The shortstop doesn’t know the grade of the strain, or any sort of target date, even tentatively, because he says he doesn’t want to.

“It just plays with my head,” he said. “I trust the trainers here. We have really good trainers and really good people at the house as well that will help me get back on the field.”

The injury occurred while he was running the bases on a play where he scored from first on a double by Francisco Alvarez. He felt it when he stepped on third base, but still kept going down the line, sliding into home plate feet-first. He was safe, but it was obvious he was in some pain.

His calf injury came the same day Juan Soto returned to play after dealing with a mild calf strain of his own.

This isn’t the first strained calf Lindor has dealt with, suffering one during the offseason in 2019 while with Cleveland. This situation isn’t exactly comparable though, since it was a right calf strain and a left ankle sprain that landed him on the injured list to start the season.

This is Lindor’s first trip to the injured list since 2021, his first season in New York, and only the third of his career. However, the 32-year-old has been banged up over the last few years.

In 2024, Lindor played the last two months of the season and the entire postseason with a lower back injury. Last year, after the season ended, he underwent a right elbow debridement procedure, then broke the hamate bone in his left hand shortly before spring training started, which required another surgery.

Lindor had recently been showing signs that his slow start was dissipating. He hit safely in four straight games during the last homestand, hit his first home run on the road at Dodger Stadium last week, and drove in four runs in the last two games. However, he’s made some uncharacteristic mental mistakes in the field recently. The Mets don’t exactly know why.