NEW YORK (AP) — Francisco Alvarez salivates for big moments.
“He’s almost foaming at the mouth to get up there,” New York Mets teammate Brandon Nimmo said. “The way that he walks around the batter’s box, the mannerisms, the body language when he’s up there and he takes a swing and steps back out, it just tells me he wants that moment and he wants to take it head on.”
A starting catcher in his first pennant race at age 22, Alvarez hit a second-inning homer and a two-run double in a three-run seventh that lifted New York over the Philadelphia Phillies 6-3 on Saturday. The Mets remained two games in front of Atlanta for the third and final NL wild-card berth.
Alvarez has five home runs in his last eight starts after hitting two in his previous 45. He has four three-RBI games in September.
“He’s been working really hard behind the scenes for months and finally he’s paying off,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “This is a guy that when it was really hard for him, he was the first guy on the field, whether it was at home, on road trips, hitting on the field, hitting in the cages, watching film, talking to coaches. So I don’t think this is an overnight thing.”
Less than two years after his big league debut on Sept. 30, 2022, Alvarez has been a key to the Mets’ surge. They have won 17 of their last 22 games and are 64-36 following a 22-33 start that left them six games back of a wild card on May 29.
Alvarez approaches games with intensity. He has “THE BEST” tattooed in red capital letters under his Adam’s apple and before each game has crosshatched eye black on each cheek instead of the horizontal strip most players prefer. He began the supersized smudges last year as a way to tell himself to switch onto competitive mode.
