QUEENS — It’s the top of the ninth, bases loaded, the tying run is 90 feet away, and Francisco Alvarez’s job behind the plate doesn’t get much more extensive than the situation on Wednesday night at Citi Field against the Chicago Cubs.
The Mets’ rookie catcher has to try and guide new reliever Phil Bickford — acquired by the Mets for cash from the Los Angeles Dodgers on trade deadline day after posting a 6.09 ERA this season — through the largest of jams to clean up Adam Ottavino’s mess. The veteran Mets reliever after entering a 4-2 game allowed a lead-off home run to Seiya Suzuki, walked Jeimer Candelario and gave him second after three unsuccessful pickup attempts resulted in a balk, and walked Mike Tauchman without recording an out.
He needs to keep tabs on potential stray runners. With two on and Candelario at second, Alvarez nearly picked him off after making the long throw behind the runner during Ottavino’s encounter with Tauchman. Ottavino was pulled after the free pass, presenting Bickford — who had just one career save in 158 career appearances — with two on and none out.
Nick Madrigal’s sacrifice bunt moved each Cub up 90 feet before a massive strikeout of Christopher Morel delivered a second out.
“That was key,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “It kind of put the onus on them.”
But Bickford and Alvarez were not out of the woods yet after yielding a four-pitch walk to Nico Hoerner to load the bases for Chicago’s third-place hitter, Ian Happ.
The strategy was a steady diet of high heat. Bickford got ahead of Happ 0-2 before the Cubs’ left fielder fouled two more high fastballs off to stay alive. But then the Mets’ new reliever missed high for a ball and unbeknownst to him, was on the verge of awarding Happ Ball 2 as the pitch clock wound down dangerously close to zero.
An even count would’ve helped tip the scale back in the Cubs’ favor as Bickford would have been forced to come back down in the zone with the bases full and nowhere else to put Happ. But at what seemed like the very last millisecond, Alvarez — the 21-year-old rookie — hastily threw up his hands and began an all-out sprint to the mound in one motion to keep Bickford ahead in the count.
“I appreciate it,” Showalter said of Alvarez’s non-stop motor. “He’s always on.”
Following a quick conference to re-align the right-hander, Alvarez secured another Bickford fastball that meandered high and away that was swung through by the left-handed Happ to secure a 4-3 victory and the Mets’ first series triumph since a tumultuous deadline that saw them sell a sizable portion of its core.
“There are people that are just engaged in the competition,” Showalter said. “When we started making some of the trades, it wasn’t so much [Alvarez] saying ‘What now?’ It was kind of [a new challenge]. He really likes to win.”
If there’s one thing you can say about Francisco Alvarez, who is in the middle of one of the most prolific power-hitting seasons ever put together by a rookie catcher, is that he only plays the game at one speed: Fast.
Any ball hit that isn’t one of his signature lasers out of the ballpark is followed by hustle. So maybe that’s why he takes the few extra seconds to admire the ones that leave the yard. His celebrations have been so demonstrative that the Mets warned him back in July to tone it down a little bit.
When his team loses, he can’t sleep — which means shut eye has probably been hard to come by this season with the Mets at 10 games under .500.
But he takes aggressive turns at first base, isn’t afraid to throw behind runners when behind the plate, and after questions of his defense lingered this spring, he’s developed into one of the top pitch framers in the game.
“I don’t think that’s just because he’s 21,” Showalter said. “When he’s 31, he’s not going to have that button off. He really enjoys playing baseball and has that type of infectious energy that makes people pull for him. But I don’t think it’s something that’s going to go away.”
While Alvarez is undoubtedly the future of not only the Mets but the catching position in baseball, there is something of an old-school desperation to his game similar to a time when a player regardless of star power had to win their job each season.
Perhaps it’s because of his roots, providing a constant and keen reminder of where he’s come from. He improved his strength in his native Venezuela by lifting bags of concrete on the construction sites his father worked at, honed his hand-eye coordination hitting kernels of corn thrown by his grandmother.
Resolute to a family he adores even more than baseball, he lost a sister when she was a teenager and was separated from his parents — his foundation — during the entirety of the COVID pandemic when Venezuela closed its borders.
“When you delve into his background and the things he’s overcome to get here and be where he is,” Showalter began. “I don’t think he’s going to let it slip away because of a lack of effort or engagement.”
