Late dramatics against Diamondbacks keep Mets hot in July
New York Mets' Francisco Alvarez celebrates his game-tying home run next to Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Christian Walker during the ninth inning on Wednesday. Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
PHOENIX — Down to their last strike, the Mets rallied for one of their most improbable wins of the season Wednesday, riding Francisco Alvarez’s tying home run and Mark Canha’s go-ahead triple to a 2-1 victory over the Diamondbacks.
That made a winner out of Kodai Senga, who contributed perhaps the best start of his rookie season: eight innings, one run, 12 strikeouts.
After their horrendous June, the Mets (40-46) remain undefeated in July, taking four consecutive games to open the month. They are back to within 6 1⁄2 games of a wild-card spot, down from 10 as the calendar flipped.
“We deserved to win,” Alvarez said through an interpreter.
They were about to lose until Alvarez gave them new life via the latest in his series of dramatic late-game moments — and the second day in a row he hit a metaphorically and literally huge home run.
He was ahead in the count, 2-and-1, against Arizona closer Andrew Chafin when plate umpire Lance Barksdale ruled that a slider just below the zone was a strike. Alvarez and manager Buck Showalter separately voiced their disagreement with that call after the game.
Alvarez kept the at-bat and the game going by taking the next pitch low for a full count, then fouling off another slider, setting up the seventh pitch of the showdown. When Chafin spotted a slider on the outer edge of the zone, too close to take but too difficult for most hitters to do anything substantial with, Alvarez swatted it to the opposite field.
As the ball landed beyond the fence — well out of the reach of righthander Jake McCarthy, who scaled the wall anyway — Alvarez was just approaching first base. He threw his bat in the air and jumped, suddenly jubilant. Upon rounding the base, he began to jog backward, facing the Mets’ dugout, pounded his chest and lifted both arms as if to flex his biceps.
Tie score.
“That’s my favorite part of the game,” Alvarez said. “When that adrenaline starts to build up, when the other team wants to win that game, when you have to focus on those at-bats — when the game is on the line, what is the worst that can happen? That you’re going to fail? I’m not afraid of failure. When those moments come up, I’m comfortable.”
Alvarez, 21, seems to have a knack for this. He leads the majors with five tying or go-ahead homers in the sixth inning or later this season.
“He doesn’t shy away from the moment,” Showalter said. “He likes being out there.”
Canha said: “He never ceases to amaze me, how he’s developing this year … Watching that at-bat from the dugout, man, he’s really locked in. It’s a tough at-bat for anybody, much less a rookie. You can always count on the theatrics from him. It’s just fun. Fun to watch him and the joy he plays the game with.”
That turned Canha’s ensuing game-winner, which drove in Brett Baty, who singled, into something of an afterthought.
“And I went up there and just swung at the first pitch and it worked out,” Canha said in his usual understated tone.
Senga and Diamondbacks lefthander Tommy Henry (six innings, zero runs) were even early. Christian Walker homered off Senga in the seventh.
In his first season stateside after coming over from Japan on a five-year, $75 million contract with the Mets, Senga has been the team’s best starting pitcher across the first half of the season. He leads his rotation-mates in ERA (3.31), innings (89 2⁄3) and starts (16). “That’s what he is, maybe,” Showalter said. “There’s little things that he’s had to adjust to and we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible on him. I don’t know if it’s that he’s growing and doing something different. I think he’s getting more comfortable by being himself.”
Senga’s greatest point of pride, he said, is his good health. That allows him to be on the mound, pitching well to help create moments like this.
“Being in that atmosphere and feeling the vibes, I know what we’re capable of,” he said through an interpreter. “To be able to do that is awesome.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
