00:00Holy Mets, the losing streak is over, but everyone's talking about Juan Soto's comments and of course,
00:07Francisco Lindor's Cavs, so let's talk all things Mets with Dan Martin, our MLB reporter for the New York Post.
00:15Dan, appreciate you hopping on with this. It seems like when this team wins, they still lose.
00:20You snap the losing streak, Soto comes off of IL, but Francisco Lindor left Wednesday night's game with a Cav
00:29injury.
00:29So we'll start with that. Can you give us any update on how bad this thing might be?
00:36Well, Brandon, it looks like, you know, Lindor is going to probably go to the IL just as Soto comes
00:42off it with a very similar injury.
00:44He's got a left calf strain or that's what it looks like. Soto had the calf strain on the other
00:49leg.
00:50And even though Soto's was relatively minor, he still missed almost three weeks as Carlos Mendoza pointed out last night.
00:58So even if it is just a minor injury for Lindor, figure on him missing at least a couple of
01:04weeks going back on the IL.
01:06It sounds like Ronnie Maurizio is going to come up from AAA Syracuse, play some short stops, see what they
01:12can get from him.
01:13But yeah, it's shaping up to be one of those years in Queens so far where, you know, just as
01:20they get Soto back,
01:21they lose Lindor just as they finally win a game after a 12-game losing streak, they get another setback.
01:26So they've dealt with a lot of adversity so far.
01:30They haven't dealt with it very well.
01:31And it looks like they've got another dose of it coming here.
01:35Well, let's talk about Juan Soto.
01:37He's back in the lineup Wednesday night, but everyone's talking about the comments that he made
01:42about pretty much not talking with or to his teammates while they were out on the road trip.
01:47Do you think that was taken out of context?
01:51I don't know if it was taken out of context.
01:52It was probably blown out of proportion in that, you know, guys who are on the IL, they're not with
01:58the team generally.
02:00Certainly, if you have a calf injury that you're recuperating from, you're not going to go on a road trip
02:05to L.A.
02:05and Chicago and risk injuring it or aggravating it.
02:09He was getting all his work done at Citi Field under team supervision.
02:15So, you know, it's not like these guys are going to call a team meeting on the Zoom call to
02:20get them going.
02:21You know, maybe he would have checked in with a couple of guys.
02:24Maybe he wouldn't.
02:25So I think people don't really understand the dynamics of what the IL is and how guys communicate with each
02:32other.
02:32I don't think it's a big deal.
02:34I don't think the team thinks it's a big deal.
02:37I think everything is fine when it comes to that.
02:39It's not like he was hiding from the team.
02:41He was, you know, focused on what he had to do to get back as soon as possible, and that's
02:45what he did.
02:46Yeah, we see it in football, you know, like, and I know it's different than baseball, but in football, when
02:52you go on injured reserve or IR, you feel like some sort of leopard.
02:55Like you're away from the team.
02:57When they're in team meetings or in, you know, in the meetings, maybe you could slide in there, but you're
03:02off to the side getting your rehab done.
03:04And your schedules just don't match up, you know, the way the active players' schedules does.
03:10So, yeah, I'm with you on that one.
03:11I thought it was blown up out of proportion.
03:14But Carlos Mendoza says that it helps having him, you know, back in the lineup.
03:19But he doesn't want to put all the pressure on one player.
03:22They got that first win out of the last 12 games.
03:25You know, though, when we're talking about Juan Soto, we're talking about one of the highest paid players in baseball
03:30in the face of the franchise.
03:31There's no running from that pressure.
03:33So $765 million question here, Dan.
03:38Can Juan Soto save the Mets or are their problems bigger than Soto?
03:45He's going to have to save them to a certain extent.
03:47But, yes, their problems are bigger.
03:49You know, Carlos Mendoza was right.
03:51They can't rely just on him, $765 million or not.
03:55He's a huge presence in the lineup.
03:57He's a big presence on the team.
03:59He affects everyone around him.
04:01We saw some of that last night, even though, you know, he just had a single.
04:06He had a couple of hard hit balls.
04:07You know teams are pitching to other guys differently because Soto was there.
04:11But, yeah, Soto can't make everyone hit better.
04:15And their offensive problems without him were mind-boggling.
04:20No one was hitting.
04:21I mean, absolutely no one.
04:22MJ Melendez had a couple of home runs, and that was it.
04:26Some guys are starting to heat up, but their problems offensively go from top to bottom.
04:31So he can help a little bit or even quite a bit.
04:35But, yeah, everyone has to hit better for them to get to where they want to go, for them to
04:40turn this around because it's been a disastrous start to the season.
04:44As you know, everything is magnified and amplified this time of year when you don't have a good record to
04:51fall back on, and maybe you fell back to .500 or a couple of games under.
04:54When you're 7 and 16, as they were before last night's game, you have the worst record in the majors.
04:59You have the first or second highest payroll in the majors.
05:02It's all going to look bad.
05:04The fans are unhappy.
05:05They were excited to get Soto back last night.
05:08Then all of a sudden you see Lindor not look right on the bases, and, you know, so they get
05:12four innings of their fully impacted lineup.
05:16It's pretty incredible how bad their fortune has been and also their play has been.
05:21And even on a night when they finally win a game and that took everything it possibly could for them
05:26just to beat the Twins, which it shouldn't.
05:28And they made plenty of mistakes, and they didn't look very good.
05:31You know, mistakes on the bases.
05:34They still get dealt with some bad news here.
05:38They should be okay without Lindor for a couple of weeks, but, you know, no one anticipated them falling on
05:44their faces quite like they did when Soto was out.
05:47So they're going to face another big test without him.
05:49Yeah, I'm hoping he can rise to the occasion right here and kind of put this team on his back
05:54while they wait for Lindor to get that calf straightened out to 100%.
05:58Because, I mean, Juan Soto, I mean, he's the most, one of the most durable players in baseball, and he's
06:03one of the most exciting to watch.
06:05So what do you think their plan is going to be and their approach to get him back into the
06:11rhythm?
06:11When do we see the Soto shuffle again?
06:14I think we can see it tonight.
06:16We saw it a little bit last night.
06:18He doesn't usually take long to get going.
06:21He's a different type of player, obviously uniquely skilled, just kind of on his own level in everything that he
06:28does.
06:29They talked about how he didn't need any rehab games.
06:31A lot of times the guys miss 19 days and 15 games, whatever it was.
06:35They might take a couple minor league rehab games.
06:38He didn't.
06:38He looked fine, you know, last night.
06:41He had a couple balls over 100 miles an hour.
06:43One ball Carlos Mendoza thought would have been out if the weather was a little warmer, and it probably would
06:49have gone out.
06:50So I suspect we'll see Soto in all his glory back very soon, as soon as tonight.
06:57And, you know, for the Mets' sake, they better hope he is because they can't afford to fall further back.
07:04You know, they're a handful of games out of the wild card.
07:06It's not that big a deal yet in the grand scheme of things.
07:09They've talked a lot about that, how it's early, a lot of baseball to be played.
07:14But when things go wrong in April, it can impact the entire season if you let it.
07:20So this team, with a lot of new faces, a lot of guys who haven't played in New York before,
07:25they're going to have to face a difficult situation that I don't think anyone really anticipated.
07:32There were some questions about how everything would gel together with guys at different positions, and it's been a nightmare
07:38so far.
07:39It still can improve, but they're not making it easy on themselves with this start and with these two huge
07:46injury blows early.
07:48Well, hopefully a Soto home run and a win tonight, back-to-back wins can kind of get them back
07:54on track.
07:55But, Dan, appreciate you hopping on with us, sir.
08:00You
Comments