Quinton Fesq
“I felt like I was pretty much like myself, and I finished the game healthy.” That’s Francisco Lindor after his Grapefruit League debut Sunday against the Blue Jays, 4 weeks and 4 days removed from hamate bone removal surgery on his left wrist. Not a cautious return. Not a managed appearance. Pretty much like himself.
The New York Mets need that to be true, and Sunday gave them a lot of reasons to believe it.
Francisco Lindor Checks the Last Box
Lindor played 4 innings at shortstop and went 1-for-3, with multiple balls hit his way and 3 at-bats that covered just about every scenario you’d want to see. He dived to his left to track down a would-be single. He launched a foul ball a projected 391 feet down the right-field line, deep enough to have been a home run in most ballparks. And on the very next pitch, he ripped a 105 mph single into right field. The swing is there. The arm is there. The instincts are still there.
Manager Carlos Mendoza put it simply after the game: “We just let him loose. No hesitation.” That’s the framing that matters most here. This wasn’t a soft introduction with a short leash and a pitch count written in pencil. The Mets put Lindor in the lineup and let him play baseball, and he responded exactly the way they needed him to.
What Lindor felt during those 4 innings is worth being honest about, because he was. There were moments, on the dive, on the foul ball, on the hard single, where something registered in the wrist. Not pain, exactly. Just different. Doctors told him unusual sensations are expected for up to 8 weeks after hamate removal, and some veterans have warned him those feelings can linger for a year or two, possibly for the rest of a career. “There was a bone removed,” Lindor said, “and there’s a lot of nerves there and soft tissue stuff. So yeah, there’s going to be moments I’m going to feel it.”
That’s not alarming. That’s just what this surgery is, and Lindor knows it better than anyone in that clubhouse right now.
Built for This Schedule
Lindor got surgery on Feb. 11 after wrist soreness at the start of camp refused to go away. The surgery came with a 6-week recovery window, which put Opening Day right at the edge of the timeline. Since then, he has moved through each phase without a hiccup, starting with defensive drills, adding batting practice, appearing in 3 minor league spring games, and finally making his Grapefruit League debut Sunday against Toronto.
President of baseball operations David Stearns had called a Grapefruit League appearance a “prerequisite” for Lindor to be in the Opening Day picture, and now that box is checked. It was the last major one.
From here, the schedule is straightforward. Lindor plays Tuesday and Thursday, then builds toward back-to-back games or even 3 in a row by late next week. That progression puts him on track to be fully ready for March 26 in Pittsburgh against Paul Skenes and the Pirates, with enough rest days baked in to keep him sharp without overdoing it.
Mendoza was clear that the Mets would not have activated Lindor for Sunday’s lineup if there was any real doubt about his readiness. That’s not just standard manager diplomacy. Lindor hit 31 home runs and stole 31 bases last season, his second 30-30 campaign in the last 3 years, and has missed just 15 games since 2022 despite dealing with a series of nagging injuries throughout that stretch. The Mets know what they have in him, and they also know he does not miss time easily.
“I saw it right away the other day when he was taking BP,” Mendoza said. “He looks normal. There’s no hesitation there. He’s swinging the bat as he normally would.”
None of this means Lindor is fully past the wrist. He acknowledged the road from here is not going to be a straight line up. There will be days where the wrist feels better, and days where it reminds him it was recently operated on. That is part of the process, and he has been told to expect it. What Sunday proved is that he can play through it, perform at a high level through it, and still be Francisco Lindor through it.
With 10 days left before the Mets open the season, that is the only thing that really needed to happen. It did.
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