Juan Soto was scratched from the Mets' lineup on Sunday before their game against the Marlins after arriving with fever, body aches and little sleep, manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Mendoza said the slugger has been dealing with an illness that has circulated through the club for the past week and that Soto himself had been sick for the past three days. "kind of like a flu going around," Mendoza said, adding: "He showed up with fever today, body aches and didn’t have much sleep."
The timing deepens a squeeze for a Mets club that had lost its past three games entering the matchup and that had reached a 21-26 record on Monday after a rough start to the season. Soto had already missed about three weeks in April with a calf strain, and the club has several other key players hampered by injuries and ailments: Francisco Lindor with a calf strain, Francisco Alvarez on the injured list with a torn meniscus, Ronny Mauricio recovering from a fractured thumb sustained on May 2, and Clay Holmes dealing with a fractured right fibula earlier in May.
Mendoza acknowledged the club is trying to manage a wave of sickness on top of the injury list, saying the illness has been something the team "has all been battling for the past week." He offered a short, practical hope on Soto’s availability: "Hopefully, he recovers and we have a player for today at some point."
The mettle of the lineup matters because Soto’s presence is disruptive to opposing pitching plans. Losing him again — even briefly — subtracts a potent right-handed bat from an offense already trying to regroup. The Mets had dropped four of five games since reaching that 21-26 mark on Monday, a slide that makes each absence more consequential and narrows margin for error in July and August planning.
Context matters here: the Mets entered the season carrying a long injury list, and the current bout of illness compounds that strain. The team’s struggles are not limited to missed games; they are visible in sustained absences and repeated roster adjustments. Soto’s earlier three-week stint with a calf strain in April removed one of the club’s most consistent run producers, and the club has been plugging holes ever since.
The tension is plain: the Mets must field as close to a full-strength lineup as possible to stop the skid, but the roster is already depleted by a mix of long-term and recent injuries. Francisco Alvarez remains on the injured list with a torn meniscus; Lindor is still hampered by a calf strain; Ronny Mauricio fractured his thumb on May 2 after another call-up; Clay Holmes fractured his right fibula earlier in May. Those are not short, nebulous setbacks — they are tangible absences that shift roles and playing time, and now an illness that has taken hold in the clubhouse threatens to shuffle plans again.
For now, Soto is the human hinge in this story: scratched on Sunday, recently returned from a calf problem in April and now dealing with three days of flu-like symptoms. His availability — and the speed of his recovery from a virus the manager called "kind of like a flu going around" — will shape how the Mets approach the immediate schedule and whether they can stabilize a lineup that has been frequently altered by injuries and sickness. If Soto recovers quickly, the Mets keep a marquee bat in the middle of the order; if he doesn't, a fragile roster must absorb another absence during a stretch where every game matters.
