{"id":625238,"date":"2026-03-15T17:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/625238\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T17:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:17:06","slug":"francisco-lindor-returns-to-mets-lineup-in-massive-injury-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/625238\/","title":{"rendered":"Francisco Lindor returns to Mets lineup in massive injury boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 The final piece of the Mets lineup is healthy enough to play.<\/p>\n<p>Francisco Lindor was penciled into the team\u2019s lineup for Sunday\u2019s game against the Blue Jays at Clover Park, giving the All-Star shortstop his first Grapefruit League start of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Lindor has spent the last month rehabbing from <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/11\/sports\/francisco-lindor-opts-for-hand-surgery-in-crushing-early-mets-blow\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">left hamate bone surgery<\/a> and had just progressed to batting against live pitching in recent days.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38785847\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/new-york-mets-francisco-lindor-121645781_94e301.jpg\" alt=\"Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor at spring training last month after undergoing left hand surgery.\" class=\"wp-image-38785847\"  \/>Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor at spring training last month after undergoing left hand surgery. Corey Sipkin for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe went through his progression and we\u2019re getting to a point now where it\u2019s time for him to start playing with us,\u201d manager Carlos Mendoza said.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s plan was for Lindor to play four innings and receive two at-bats. He will likely have Monday off and then resume Grapefruit League action on Tuesday. The Mets have spring training games running through next weekend, ahead of the March 26 opener against the Pirates at Citi Field.<\/p>\n<p>Mendoza said in the aftermath of the surgery there wasn\u2019t a firm timetable for Lindor to begin playing games.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDelivering insights on all things Amazin\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Mets by Mike Puma, exclusively on Sports+\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut we saw he was progressing, not only defensively but offensively, with the way he was swinging the bat in the cages, transitioning to the field, getting live at-bats,\u201d Mendoza said.<\/p>\n<p>Lindor became the second starting position player to begin exhibition games this week: Luis Robert Jr. debuted in the Grapefruit League on Thursday after the Mets slow played his spring to ensure his legs were strengthened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 The final piece of the Mets lineup is healthy enough to play. Francisco Lindor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,227,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,185,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-625238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-francisco-lindor","10":"tag-mets","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkmets","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116234332283176279","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}