ANAHEIM, Calif. — Francisco Lindor understands the anticipation of two Mets aces potentially returning in the coming weeks, but isn’t waiting around to get rescued.
As the NL East race continues to tighten, the Mets shortstop said Sunday that any thoughts Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer alone will carry the team upon returning are misguided.
“No one on this team is the savior — no one,” Lindor said before the Mets faced the Angels to complete a 10-game, 11-day trip. “We all are a team, we all believe in each other, we all count on each other. We want [deGrom and Scherzer] to be back, they are a huge part of our team, but no one here is a savior.
“It would be unfair for them to come back and us to say, ‘You are the savior. Go and take us to the Promised Land.’ That is not fair for them. At the end of the day we just have to play the game the right way, continue to play the game the right way and enjoy it while we have it because it could be a long, long season.”
DeGrom and Scherzer have been throwing off a mound in rehab work, with the latter perhaps a smidge ahead in his timeline as he prepares to face live hitters. The Mets could have one or both pitchers back by late June/early July. DeGrom is recovering from a stress reaction on his right scapula that has kept him sidelined since spring training. Scherzer is rehabbing from a left oblique strain.
The Mets entered play 4-5 on the West Coast trip and had watched their 10 ½-game lead in the division dwindle to five, after the Braves on Sunday won an 11th straight contest.
Lindor, who has predicted an NL East dogfight all along, is hardly surprised by the Braves’ surge.
“It was going to be foolish for me to think that we were going to win the division by 15 games or 12 games,” Lindor said. “If we win it by 12 games, it will be amazing, but I expect it to be a tight race in August and September. I kind of expect it to be tight the whole entire year and the Braves, they definitely know how to play deep into October.
“The way I see it the goal is not to win the first half, the goal is to win late in September, to be the top team late in September. If we can be on top all year, amazing, but I truly believe that it’s going to be a tight race. We have to continue to grind. Right now our road is choppy, it’s not a straight line. It’s not going up, it’s not going down. It’s very choppy right now.”
After a May surge in which he helped carry the lineup, Lindor (who fractured his right middle finger in the double doors in his hotel suite at the start of the trip), entered play with a .189/.225/.297 slash line for June with one homer and three RBIs.
“I haven’t looked at my numbers, but I personally feel like I haven’t done enough to help the team win out here in the West,” Lindor said. “I’m not frustrated, but I’m not content with where I am either. I just feel like I have got to do a little bit more to help the team win for sure.”
In examining the schedule, Lindor knows the Mets can’t relax just because they are headed home.
“This month is going to be a very challenging month,” he said. “We have Milwaukee, Miami and then we have Houston and we have Miami again, so it’s a very challenging month, but I think that will say a lot about our team, how we can compete day after day with really good teams.”
