Pete Alonso seemed to dodge a bullet when he walked away from a hit by pitch to the face with nothing but a busted lip.
Twenty four hours later, Francisco Lindor appears to walk away relatively unscathed after taking a fastball to the face, in nearly the exact same spot as Alonso, in Friday’s win over the Nationals.
“No, thank God. All the X-rays came back negative,” Lindor said. “I don’t have a headache. I think one of my teeth might be cracked, but not bad. I still got it. I can still smile.”
Lindor hopes to be smiling in the starting lineup come Saturday night, which would be a massive sigh of relief for Mets fans, who have watched four of their players get hit by a pitch in these first two games.
“We’ll see how we feel tomorrow morning, but I’m praying that I’ll play tomorrow,” Lindor said.
After the shock of being hit in the face, Lindor looked up from the dirt below his face to see his entire team spilling out of the dugout to defend their teammate, a sight he says he won’t soon forget.
“Getting up, and seeing everybody, seeing how Buck [Showalter], Eric [Chavez], Jeremy [Hefner], everyone was out there…I appreciate that. It shows unity.
“I’m proud of being a New York Met,” Lindor said. “I got hit, I was on the ground, I hear scuffles, I look up, my whole entire team is out there. the whole entire coaching staff is out there…that says a lot.”
Lindor also said Washington reliever Steve Cishek apologized for the scary pitch, assuring Lindor that it wasn’t intentional. But after four hit by pitches already this series, intent wasn’t on the minds of the Mets angrily spilling onto the field.
“I talked to Cishek,” Lindor said. “He apologized, he said he wasn’t trying to do it on purpose. As a man, I respect that.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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