Luis Rojas: Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez playing every day rest of the way is 'just not realistic'

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The Mets, currently four games back of the division and 4.5 games back of a Wild Card spot, are in a position where every game is a must-win with just 22 games to go in the season.

But Luis Rojas has had to balance the playoff-like intensity with the health of his players, which has frustrated Mets fans given recent absences of Francisco Lindor and Javier Baez from the starting lineup.

Both Lindor and Baez are expected to be two of New York’s biggest offensive contributors and two of the best defenders on the roster, but both were out of the starting lineup in game two of Saturday’s doubleheader against the lowly Nationals, which resulted in a close 4-3 loss.

Would Lindor and Baez’s presence in the starting lineup changed a one-run game? It certainly could have, but Rojas isn’t taking any chances with his two middle infielders, and won’t look to push them the rest of the way either.

“I would love everyone to play every day. It’s just not realistic with how guys respond,” Rojas said. “How guys respond game to game, how they feel, we have a performance staff that will track their workload, how they feel, and their treatment history. Not everyone is 100 percent at this point. To keep guys on the field until the end of the season, there’s decisions that we made. There’s not only the manager and the performance staff, but also the player, in that decision.”

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Lindor came off the IL last month after suffering an oblique strain, and Baez recently came off the IL after battling back spasms. Lindor has been back since Aug. 24 and Baez since Aug. 22, but Rojas still expects to play it safe when necessary.

“Ideally, I would love everyone to play every day, but going game-to-game, things happen,” Rojas said. “That game one in Washington, that first game and how it was, it got into the ninth inning, and how long it was, it put both of those guys in a position to not start the next game.”

The decision isn’t solely on Rojas, who said both Lindor and Baez felt it was the safe play to come off the bench in game two of that doubleheader.

“They both agreed in not starting just because of the…games they played, and they’re guys that just came off the IL a week before, or a little more than a week,” Rojas said. “It was a collaborative decision just to not start the game and have them ready to come off the bench, like they came later.”

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Baez has started every game since, as has Lindor, and Rojas stressed that that is normally the case. The two will accept when it’s necessary to be cautious, but both are normally itching to get in the lineup, particularly now, when a potential playoff berth is on the line.

“They’ve done that a lot of times,” Rojas said. “I go to them because we keep track of their playing time and how they are, and when they come for different treatments and stuff, I go to them and say ‘I’m thinking of giving you a day one of these days, what do you think?’ they’re like ‘No, I’m not taking a day.’ They’ve done that a bunch of times. But Saturday after that game one, it was just a little different.”

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