Mets' Francisco Lindor Unclear on Potential Return

It may be a while until we see Francisco Lindor back on the field for the New York Mets.

After the Mets officially placed Lindor on the 15-day injured list on Thursday with a left calf strain, the All-Star shortstop offered a bleak response when asked about the severity of his injury. He even explained that he does not want to know the grade of his calf strain.

"There's definitely a level of concern...I'll be out for a minute, I don't know how long," Lindor said. "I'm the type of person who doesn't really want to know...it just plays with my head."

Francisco Lindor says "there's definitely a level of concern" with his calf strain

He also adds he doesn't know the grade of calf strain and doesn't want to know because it messes with his head pic.twitter.com/4fFlMOkuHU
— SNY (@SNYtv) April 23, 2026

Lindor exited last night's win against the Minnesota Twins after running gingerly around third base when he scored on an RBI double in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Ronny Mauricio was called up today in place of Lindor, and is in the lineup batting eighth and playing shortstop tonight for the Mets in their series finale against the Twins.

While the Mets were hoping that this calf strain for Lindor would be somewhat similar to the one Juan Soto suffered back on April 3 in San Francisco, manager Carlos Mendoza did not echo that sentiment and believed it is much more severe than Soto's.

"We still have multiple people looking at the imaging and the MRI and all that. We do know there's the injury there and he's going to be down for quite a bit," Mendoza said. "I don't think we are anticipating something like we knew right away with Juan."

"We do know there's the injury there and he's going to be down for quite a bit"

Carlos Mendoza says the Mets have "multiple people" looking at the imaging from Francisco Lindor's calf MRI and it's not similar to a lower severity like Juan Soto's calf strain pic.twitter.com/Ka8I9pQyJV
— SNY (@SNYtv) April 23, 2026

This injury for Lindor and the Mets came at the worst time as the team finally ended its 12-game losing streak, its longest since 2002. Lindor was also starting to heat up at the plate, going 3-for-5 over New York's two games against Minnesota with a home run and four RBI. Prior to those two games, the 32-year-old had just one home run and an RBI during the first 18 games of the season.

Since joining the Mets in 2021, Lindor has been an iron horse for the ballclub, missing a combined 52 games during his six seasons in Flushing, including just 12 over the last two seasons.

It has been especially difficult for Lindor these past few months. He also missed most of spring training after undergoing hamate bone surgery, and was in a slump for the majority of the Mets' 12-game skid.

"We're athletes. We depend on our body. Stuff like this happens. It's part of the game," Lindor said.

The Mets will ride the next several weeks without their de facto captain and hope their first win in over two weeks last night can get them back on track.

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