Francisco Alvarez took hitting ninth in the lineup in stride. He credited the depth of the Mets’ order rather than questioning his place in it.
“I was just thinking [upon seeing the one through nine] that we have a good lineup. We have a team that has nine good hitters,” Alvarez said through interpreter Alan Suriel after making a case — solely with his bat — that he does not belong at the bottom of the order for much longer.
The young Mets catcher smashed three pitches and wound up with two hits — one a demolished home run that visited the second deck in left field — in addition to saving the club a run defensively in an all-around excellent performance in Thursday’s 11-7 Opening Day victory over the Pirates at Citi Field.
Coming up through the system, Alvarez was the best prospect in baseball largely because of a powerful bat that has only shown glimpses of its excellence in 304 major league games over parts of four seasons. He was demoted midseason last year, scrapped a new batting stance and returned in late July, after which he was among the better hitters in baseball despite tearing the UCL in his thumb late in the year.
And he picked up where he left off in reaching base three times in five plate appearances, crushing a single into right and smoking the homer to left in the sixth inning, going back-to-back with Carson Benge.
On a promising day from nearly the entirety of the Mets lineup — which fought through long at-bats, forced Pittsburgh pitching to expend 192 pitches in eight frames and scored 11 runs — the 24-year-old was among the standouts.
“I feel good. I feel really good,” Alvarez said about his swing. “I’ve been able to do my job in the cage, work on it and work on what I want and really maintain the mechanics of just staying strong and consistent.”
For all the good in Alvarez’s bat, it is possible his brain provided his greatest impact on the game.
In the top of a third inning of a contest the Mets were leading 5-2, Freddy Peralta appeared to lose Oneil Cruz to a one-out walk on a full-count fastball. The pitch, Alvarez acknowledges, was a difficult one for home-plate umpire Adrian Johnson to judge.
“I called for a fastball away, and Freddy missed up and in,” said Alvarez, who had to jerk his glove from the outside of the zone to the inside. “So it’s hard for the umpire to be able to see that.”
It was less hard for Alvarez to judge the pitch. He touched his catcher’s mask and signaled for the Mets’ first Automated Ball-Strike challenge.
“I felt pretty confident about it,” said Alvarez, who watched as replay showed the pitch buzzed the inside of the plate and thus Cruz had struck out rather than walked.
The decision to challenge effectively saved the Mets a run, as two pitches later Peralta served up a solo shot — and not a two-run shot — to Brandon Lowe.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
