Francisco Alvarez just might be back.
The youngster delivered for the second straight game since returning to the Mets.
Alvarez missed his first Citi Field home run of the season by a matter of inches on Monday night against the Angels, instead settling for a rally-starting double high and deep off the right-center fence in the bottom of the seventh.
But right back in the lineup on Tuesday, Alvarez made sure to leave the park.
After Brett Baty lined a two-out double into the right-center gap, the slugger dug in and demolished a seventh-pitch 87 mph fastball from veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks 374 feet for a no-doubt, game-tying blast.
Hendricks held the Mets to just one single over 4.2 innings before the roof caved in.
“I was patient,” Alvarez said through a translator after the win. “I went to go look for my pitch that I could hit, I didn’t want to go and swing-and-miss, that was my approach and I was able to execute my swing on that specific pitch.”
The 23-year-old former No. 1 prospect has now gone deep 12 times over his last 20 games between Triple-A and the majors after struggling to find his power stroke during a disappointing first half of the season.
He did strike out with a man on third and two outs in the bottom of the eighth on Tuesday, but has still reached base a total of five times over his first two games back.
Alvarez is now hitting an impressive .333 with 10 of those blasts, 21 RBI, and a 1.335 OPS this month.
“I’m so happy for him,” Brandon Nimmo said. “I see how hard he works, he puts everything into this. For good people you want to see good things happen, and for him to take going down to Triple-A and go work and to be able to have the results right away is amazing.
“I know he has all the makings of an All-Star catcher, it’s just putting it all together. I know it’s easier said than done, but for him to have this impact right away is amazing.”
While the sample size is still extremely small, getting Alvarez back to his run producing ways would be a ginormous boost to the bottom of this lineup moving forward in the second half of the season.
“You have to give this kid a ton of credit,” Carlos Mendoza said. “From the moment he got back down there he just kept working. He could’ve pouted and felt sorry for himself but that wasn’t the case — and here he is now, looking like the Alvy we know he’s capable of.”
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