Mets' Francisco Lindor sidelined by broken pinkie toe
The Mets' Francisco Lindor reacts toward the Los Angeles Dodgers' dugout after being hit with a pitch during the first inning on Wednesday. Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill
LOS ANGELES — Francisco Lindor broke a finger at a hotel here in 2022 and played through it. He injured his lower back before the playoffs in 2024 and played through that, too.
And now you can add broken pinkie toe to the list.
The Mets’ prince of pain management was out of the lineup against the Dodgers on Thursday after fracturing the toe when he was hit by Tony Gonsolin’s 89-mph slider in the first inning of Wednesday’s 6-1 win at Dodger Stadium. He stayed in the game Wednesday, playing all nine innings and going 0-for-4 with a strikeout and a run. He said Thursday that he is day-to-day and even petitioned manager Carlos Mendoza to play in the finale of the four-game series.
Mendoza and Lindor do not believe a stint on the injured list is likely.
“Hopefully [I’ll] play sooner rather than later,” Lindor said. “We’ll take it day by day. I trust the trainers and how they go about it. It’ll be an educated decision on whether to play or not . . . It hurts. With shoes, it hurts a little bit more.”
Luisangel Acuna got the start at shortstop Thursday and batted ninth. Ronny Mauricio also could be an option at the position, Mendoza said. Lindor said he likely won’t DH because “if I’m good enough to hit and run, I should be good enough to play shortstop.”
Lindor missed only one game in 2022, two in 2023 and 10 in 2024 because of a painful back injury that, at times, seemed to render him nearly immobile. He’s slashing .279/.353/.490 with 14 homers, 36 RBIs and 11 stolen bases this year and is tied with Pete Alonso with 2.2 wins above replacement, tops on the team.
He fights to stay in games, and “this is going to be a conversation after every day,” Mendoza said. “Even last night, going back to the hotel on the bus, he was fighting. He wanted to be in the lineup . . . I feel we got relatively good news here where, yeah, it’s fractured, but it’s in an area where it’s just pain tolerance. They were telling me that if he would’ve got [hit] in the joint, it would have been something more serious.”
At the very least, Lindor knows he’s not alone. Dodger Stadium is where Aaron Judge tore a ligament in his right big toe when he ran into the rightfield wall in 2023. And the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts broke the fourth toe on his left foot when he stubbed it in the dark at his home.
Said Lindor: “Both shortstops got broken toes, I guess.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
