Mets try to play giveaway, but hold off White Sox
Francisco Alvarez of the Mets celebrates his sixth-inning two-run home run against the White Sox at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Mets got a front-row seat to what could be their immediate future Tuesday night — a team far out of a wild card spot, definitive sellers at the Aug. 1 trade deadline, pitching a guy who’s likely to garner interest from more than a few GMs looking to shore up their rotations.
To which they replied: Not us, not (quite) yet.
And a lot of that had to do with a key piece in their long-term future — Francisco Alvarez.
Alvarez homered twice, helping the Mets survive their leaky bullpen, a costly mental error from Brett Baty, and a nightmarish seventh inning as they held on to beat the White Sox, 11-10 at Citi Field for a very messy second straight win.
Alvarez’s 19 homers lead all major-league catchers, and is only seven homers shy of Johnny Bench’s record of 26 home runs for a catcher age 21 or younger.
“That’ll get your attention a little bit,” Buck Showalter said of the comparison.
A victory, though, still doesn’t much change the big picture: The Mets are tied with the Cubs in the wild card standings, still have another four teams ahead of them for the final spot and are 7 1/2 games back.
Still, Tuesday night marked the seventh time they’ve scored 10 or more runs this season, and they tied a season high with four homers, with Baty and DJ Stewart hitting the other two. Jeff McNeil — who came into the day hitting .188 over June and July — went 2-for-5 with a run and two RBIs. Every Met in the starting lineup reached base, they chased starter Lucas Giolito after just 3 2/3 innings, and they led 11-4 before the top of the seventh nearly ruined it all.
After throwing 1 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of Carlos Carrasco, Grant Hartwig kicked off the seventh by walking Andrew Benintendi and allowing a single to Tim Anderson. After striking out Luis Robert Jr., he was lifted for Trevor Gott, who induced a groundball to third. Instead of taking the sure out at first, Baty made the mental error of going to second with the speedy Anderson quickly advancing — allowing all three runners to reach safely.
Three days after a Baty misplay cost the Mets the game, Tuesday’s mistake nearly did the same.
Jake Burger doubled in two runs and Yasmani Grandal followed up with a two-run single. Zach Remillard singled, leading Showalter to call in lefty Brooks Raley, who walked pinch-hitter Carlos Perez. Then, with runners on second and third, Alvarez failed to get his glove down on a sweeper out of the zone for a run-scoring passed ball, whittling the Mets’ lead to 11-9. Raley, though, ended up stranding the tying runs on base.
“It’s hard, especially in the heat of the moment,” Showalter said of Baty’s mental mistakes. “That’s part of the process up here. The runners are faster, the balls spin a little bit more . . . These are adjustments. The only way you can make those adjustments is to play it and be thrown into it. That’s why we keep running him out there. He’ll figure it out.”
Clinging to the two-run lead, David Robertson gave up an RBI single to Benintendi, but stranded two runners in scoring position after Anderson flied out to end it.
The mess put a bit of a damper on what had previously been an overwhelmingly positive night.
In the first inning, the Mets managed the unthinkable (for them).
They scored five runs.
After coming into the game getting outscored 65-26 in first innings this season, they pounced on Giolito — expected to be one of the best starting pitchers being shopped around this trade deadline.
Tommy Pham had an RBI double in the first, Pete Alonso drove in another run with a sacrifice fly and, with two outs, Alvarez uncorked on a hanging slider, driving it 394-feet to left for the two-run shot. Baty, who came into the day riding a 1-for-14, followed up with a solo home run to center — his first since June 29.
Alvarez hit his second two-run homer in the sixth — something that gave the Mets the 11-4 cushion that they’d end up needing. After, Showalter praised Alvarez’s steady approach and lack of “emotional at-bats” — something not only typified by Alvarez's power, but also by the two walks he collected Tuesday.
He doesn’t make the moment too big because “the worst thing that can happen is that I fly out or I get out,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “At the end of the day, you just have to trust yourself because the worst things have already happened. These things have happened before. That’s where you have to be able to control your emotions.”
In a season where the Mets haven't been able to control much, that's been the biggest bright spot of all.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
