{"id":645981,"date":"2026-03-27T06:17:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/645981\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T06:17:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:17:30","slug":"mets-francisco-alvarez-comes-through-on-both-sides-on-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/645981\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets’ Francisco Alvarez comes through on both sides on Opening Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francisco Alvarez took hitting ninth in the lineup in stride. He credited the depth of the Mets\u2019 order rather than questioning his place in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking [upon seeing the one through nine] that we have a good lineup. We have a team that has nine good hitters,\u201d Alvarez said through interpreter Alan Suriel after making a case \u2014 solely with his bat \u2014 that he does not belong at the bottom of the order for much longer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The young Mets catcher smashed three pitches and wound up with two hits \u2014 one a demolished home run that visited the second deck in left field \u2014 in addition to saving the club a run defensively in an all-around excellent performance in Thursday\u2019s 11-7 Opening Day victory<\/a> over the Pirates at Citi Field.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coming up through the system, Alvarez was the best prospect in baseball largely because of a powerful bat that has only shown glimpses of its excellence in 304 major league games over parts of four seasons. He was demoted midseason last year, scrapped a new batting stance and returned in late July, after which he was among the better hitters in baseball despite tearing the UCL in his thumb late in the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And he picked up where he left off in reaching base three times in five plate appearances, crushing a single into right and smoking the homer to left in the sixth inning, going back-to-back with Carson Benge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewFrancisco Alvarez hits a solo homer during the sixth inning of the Mets\u2019 11-7 win over the Pirates on Opening Day at Citi Field on March 26, 2026. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

On a promising day from nearly the entirety of the Mets lineup \u2014 which fought through long at-bats, forced Pittsburgh pitching to expend 192 pitches in eight frames and scored 11 runs \u2014 the 24-year-old was among the standouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good. I feel really good,\u201d Alvarez said about his swing. \u201cI\u2019ve been able to do my job in the cage, work on it and work on what I want and really maintain the mechanics of just staying strong and consistent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all the good in Alvarez\u2019s bat, it is possible his brain provided his greatest impact on the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the top of a third inning of a contest the Mets were leading 5-2, Freddy Peralta appeared to lose Oneil Cruz to a one-out walk on a full-count fastball. The pitch, Alvarez acknowledges, was a difficult one for home-plate umpire Adrian Johnson to judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI called for a fastball away, and Freddy missed up and in,\u201d said Alvarez, who had to jerk his glove from the outside of the zone to the inside. \u201cSo it\u2019s hard for the umpire to be able to see that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was less hard for Alvarez to judge the pitch. He touched his catcher\u2019s mask and signaled for the Mets\u2019 first Automated Ball-Strike challenge<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewFreddy Peralta greets Francisco Alvarez during the fifth inning of the Mets\u2019 Opening Day win over the Pirates at Citi Field on March 26, 2026. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt pretty confident about it,\u201d said Alvarez, who watched as replay showed the pitch buzzed the inside of the plate and thus Cruz had struck out rather than walked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision to challenge effectively saved the Mets a run, as two pitches later Peralta served up a solo shot \u2014 and not a two-run shot \u2014 to Brandon Lowe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francisco Alvarez took hitting ninth in the lineup in stride. He credited the depth of the Mets\u2019 order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,1347,101,4,18513,1690,61,2548,4203,64,185],"class_list":["post-645981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-mets","tag-baseball","tag-francisco-alvarez","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-opening-day","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkmets","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116299685117084228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}