Lindor, Alonso in vaunted ranks of MLB's Iron Men

This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SAN DIEGO -- Earlier this season, Francisco Lindor’s streak almost ended.

On the morning of May 2, Lindor woke up feeling ill enough that by game time, manager Carlos Mendoza had removed him from the Mets’ lineup for the first time all year. Lindor begged to stay in. He convinced his manager at least to consider him as an option off the bench. And ultimately, Lindor did enter, hitting a pair of two-run doubles -- including a walk-off hit -- in a 7-6 win over the Cubs.

He’s played in every game since.

More accurately, Lindor has played in every game, period. Nearly 80 percent of the way through the season, Lindor and teammate Pete Alonso are two of the eight Major Leaguers to take the field every day. Both have a chance to join Felix Millan in 1975 as the only Mets to appear in every game of a regular season. (Another, John Olerud, played in 162 games in 1999, but the Mets had 163 games that year due to a one-game playoff against the Reds.)

“It’s important to post up,” Lindor said. “It’s important to show up every single day and be available, be ready to play the game that we all love. To me, that’s why they pay me. I just take a lot of pride in that.”

These days, as teams have placed increasing emphasis on rest, recovery, and quantifiable measures of both, it’s become rarer for players to appear in all 162. Over the last three seasons, only six big leaguers have accomplished the feat, including Matt Olson and Marcus Semien who each did so twice. (Olson is on track to play in every game again this year.)

To be clear: this isn’t the primary goal of either Lindor or Alonso. Ask them about it, and they’ll talk about team success, about making the postseason, about staying sharp deep into October. Even within the realm of individual goals, a 162-game season probably ranks lower for Lindor than a second consecutive 30-30 campaign (he’s on pace to achieve that as well) or, of course, a National League MVP.

“It would be cool, but it’s not the goal,” Lindor said. “If I play every day, that means I had a year where I didn’t really need the off-day. … As of right now, thank the good Lord, I’ve been waking up good enough. I’ve been feeling good. This year, I’ve been bouncing back extremely well.”

Healing powers have long been a specialty of both Lindor and Alonso. Last year, when Alonso suffered a bone bruise and a left wrist sprain after being struck by a 96 mph fastball -- injuries that typically require a three- or four-week recovery -- he returned after missing only eight games. Lindor played the entirety of the 2023 season with a bone spur in his right elbow, which required offseason surgery to remove. He still appeared in the first 115 games before a bout of oblique tightness cost him a night on the bench. Lindor returned the next day, of course, for the second half of a doubleheader. Then, this year, he had his flu game in May.

Combined, Alonso and Lindor have appeared in 98.6 percent of the Mets’ games since the start of the 2022 season. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, they rank second and third on MLB’s active consecutive games played list (219 for Alonso, 173 for Lindor), behind only Olson (585).

“I think we’re cut from the same cloth where it’s like, listen, any day that ends in ‘Y,’ we’re going to be out there,” Alonso said recently. “We’re very similar in that aspect where people on the team depend upon us. We know our responsibilities. In order for us to be successful, we need to be out there.”

Lindor credited the Mets’ performance staff members and personal trainers, who have overseen a teamwide decline in soft tissue injuries over the past half decade. He spends his offseasons preparing for the rigors of a long summer, which is what’s allowed him to become one of baseball’s modern iron men. Among active players, only Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt and Semien have had more seasons of at least 158 games.

“To have the opportunity to play day in and day out is a blessing,” Lindor said. “That’s amazing. I’m honored, I’m humbled by the opportunity to play every single day, [that] I’m good enough to play every day.”