a strained left calf while running the bases against the Minnesota Twins<\/a> on April 22, played a two-inning simulated game Friday.<\/p>\nLindor took at-bats against a pitcher from Single-A Brooklyn, though he didn\u2019t run after making contact. He also fielded ground balls.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore like a controlled environment (where) we\u2019re simulating game action but we\u2019re controlling it,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to do that again next week here, where instead of two innings it\u2019s more like three, five (innings). And then we\u2019ll revisit at the end of next week to see what\u2019s the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lindor would still require a rehab stint in the minors following what will end up being his longest stay on the injured list, Mendoza said. Lindor has missed the last 44 games, during which the Mets have gone 22-22.<\/p>\n
He missed just 52 games in his first five seasons with the team and played at least 143 games in each of his first four nonpandemic seasons with Cleveland.<\/p>\n
Lindor will likely return to a club still trying to play its way back from a 12-game losing streak in April \u2014 the longest skid for the Mets since 2002.<\/p>\n
New York, which is in the midst of a 25-game stretch against teams that began June with a winning record, is in last place in the NL East.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no question we\u2019ve played better since April, but we still haven\u2019t played consistent enough to get ourselves out of a hole that we dug in April,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re very aware of that. So we have to prove it. I continue to believe that we have people in the clubhouse who are capable of doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Encouraging signs for Senga<\/p>\n
Pitcher Kodai Senga took an encouraging step in his return from lumbar spine inflammation on Thursday, when he allowed one hit over six innings for Double-A Binghamton.<\/p>\n
Senga, whose start was pushed back two days due to ulnar nerve irritation, is expected to throw a bullpen in New York before making at least one more rehab start.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Francisco Lindor has started playing simulated games and New York Mets president of baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,4034,54372,35409,1828,6779,6782,179993,2364,12443,591,6784,6778,1025,1026,1830,85],"class_list":["post-732930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baseball","tag-carlos-mendoza","tag-david-stearns","tag-francisco-lindor","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-georgia","tag-kodai-senga","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-minor-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-mets","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}