Lindor's All-Star nod a testament to not just talent, but his grit

NEW YORK -- Earlier this year, in a game in Los Angeles, Francisco Lindor took an 89-mph Tony Gonsolin slider off his right foot. He may not have known it as he gutted through the rest of that night in pain, but when he removed his sock and saw significant bruising on his pinkie toe, Lindor rightly assumed the worst.

The toe was broken, which of course meant that Lindor intended to play right through it.

Two nights later, after sitting out a single game, Lindor stood in the dugout in Colorado with a bat in his hand. He had spent half the afternoon in the trainer’s room receiving treatment, the other half in the batting cage taking swings. Just before the game, Lindor told Carlos Mendoza he was available, surprising his manager not one bit.

When the Mets needed a pinch-hitter in the top of the ninth, Mendoza called on Lindor, who ripped a go-ahead two-run double to right field. Not long after, the Mets polished off their win.

During an age in which players often receive routine maintenance days -- in which the 162-game Iron Man has become an anachronism -- Lindor stands out not just for his desire to play in as many baseball games as possible, but for his ability to achieve that goal. Like everyone else, Lindor is human, subject to the same types of aches, pains, cuts and bruises. What makes Lindor unique is both his willingness to play through them and his capacity to remain successful in spite of them.

That, as much as anything, is what has made Lindor an All-Star starter. He will take part in the Midsummer Classic this week for the fifth time in his career and the first time as a Met, alongside teammates Pete Alonso, Edwin Díaz and David Peterson.

“We are spoiled,” said Alonso, who knows a thing or two about durability. Last season, Alonso became the second Met to appear in all 162 games, passing José Reyes as the franchise’s all-time leader in consecutive games played.

“With him, you get a guy who’s just willing to strap it on regardless of how he feels or regardless of how his health is,” Alonso continued.

It hasn’t always been this way for Lindor. In his first season with the Mets, Lindor strained his right oblique muscle and spent about five weeks on the injured list, landing there for just the second time in his career.

He hasn’t been back since. In 2022, Lindor fractured his right middle finger accidentally slamming it in a Los Angeles hotel room door. He wound up missing a single game. In 2023, Lindor played the entire year with a bone spur in his right elbow, which required offseason surgery. He finished ninth in NL MVP voting.

The following year, 2024, solidified Lindor’s reputation as someone willing to play through just about anything. In early May, Lindor uncharacteristically asked out of a game due to a nasty illness. After arriving at Citi Field the next morning and receiving intravenous fluids, Lindor began pestering Mendoza to let him play.

When Mendoza finally relented, Lindor came through with two massive hits: a pinch-hit two-run double in the sixth inning, followed by a walk-off two-run double in the 11th.

“It’s just part of the grind, part of being a big leaguer,” Lindor said that day.

Lindor didn’t miss another game until mid-September, when he wrenched his back on an awkward slide in Philadelphia. Once again, he tried to play through the pain, but this time, he didn’t find things so easy. Although the best efforts of trainers didn’t give Lindor complete pain relief, the Mets were in a pennant race. So as soon as Lindor felt well enough to make it onto the field, he did so, reaching base three times in his first game back.

Two days later, Lindor hit a key home run and stole two bases in a crucial win in Milwaukee. Then came his pièce de résistance: a go-ahead homer in the ninth inning of Game 161 of the season in Atlanta to clinch the Mets a playoff spot.

Asked afterward why he made such a slow, seemingly emotionless trot around the bases, Lindor admitted: “My back hurts. I’m tired.”

Those around him laughed, understanding the truth in that statement. Just because Lindor is adept at playing through injury doesn’t make it easy. “Posting,” as players like to call the act of playing every day, is a skill -- just like hitting, throwing or fielding a baseball. It’s the one that perhaps best typifies Lindor as an All-Star.

“He has been the best player on the field even since we were kids,” said teammate Jesse Winker, who has known Lindor since the two played travel ball together. “We are in our 30s, and he is still the best player on the field, which is cool. That is a testament to who he is -- the work that he does year in and year out.”