QUEENS — Francisco Alvarez continued to stake his claim as Major League Baseball’s premier power-hitting catcher with a pair of home runs while the Mets’ bullpen narrowly escaped disaster in an 11-10 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night at Citi Field.
New York’s second straight win came with its seemingly-usual anxious moments from an unreliable bullpen as Grant Hartwig, Trevor Gott, and Brooks Raley nearly blew an 11-4 lead in the seventh inning by allowing five runs to bring Chicago within two.
In the ninth inning, David Robertson walked a pair before Andrew Benintendi’s RBI single cut the Mets’ lead to just one and put the tying run at third base. But the Mets’ interim closer managed to get Tim Anderson to fly out to secure the victory.
“You could tell pitching was going to be a challenge,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “There were going to be a lot of runs scored so when you’re adding on runs, you’re never feeling satisfied.”
Alvarez went 2-for-3 on the night with two walks and four RBI, providing an initial jolt in a rare, monstrous first inning that saw the Mets (44-50) hang five runs on Chicago. Having scored just 26 runs in the first inning throughout their previous 93 games of the season, New York broke loose to jump White Sox starter and potential trade deadline chip Lucas Giolito — a rare showing of early offensive affluence that now accounts for 16.1% of the team’s first-inning runs this season.
“I’m always ready to swing at my pitch,” Alvarez said. “So whether it’s the first or second pitch, if they throw methat pitch that I’m looking for, I’m going to swing away.”
Nabbing a pair of runs through a Tommy Pham double and a Pete Alonso sacrifice fly, the kids took over to give the Mets a healthy early advantage. Alvarez launched his 18th home run of the season into the second deck in left field for a two-run shot. He was immediately followed up by Brett Baty’s sixth home run of the season, which went out to dead center for the Mets’ fourth back-to-back jacks of the season.
“I was looking for something soft because Giolito was throwing me more offspeed there,” Alvarez said. “That’s what I was looking for there.”
Entering the fourth inning up 6-2, DJ Stewart, who was called up from Triple-A after the All-Star break, hit his first major-league home run since Sept. 7, 2021 — a solo shot — when he was with the Baltimore Orioles. He had hit 16 round-trippers in 188 at-bats this season in Syracuse. Jeff McNeil’s RBI single with two outs in the inning put the hosts 8-2 and run Giolito from the game.
Mets starter Carlos Carrasco wouldn’t last much longer as a two-run fifth inning prompted the hook with two outs, just one short of qualifying for the win on a night he allowed four runs on six hits with five strikeouts.
“Carlos didn’t have the command he had in the last two outings,” Showalter said. “It’s not always walks, it’s kind of being wild in the strike zone. But he was a pitch away from getting us through the fifth there. We couldn’t just finish it off.
Whether he got the win or not looked as though it would be a formality as the Mets heaped on more in the sixth inning. McNeil picked up his second two-out RBI single of the night before Alvarez launched his second home run of the game — another no-doubter to left-center to make it 11-4.
It was the catcher’s 19th home run of the season and the third multi-home-run game of his young career.
But Hartwig, who had thrown 1.1 scoreless innings in relief of Carrasco, put the first two men on in the seventh before getting the hook with one out. Against Gott, Andrew Vaugh reached on a fielder’s choice that yielded no outs after Baty threw late in an attempt to get the force out at second. Jake Burger followed up with a two-run double, which was followed by a two-run single from Yasmani Grandal, who homered in the second inning. After a Zach Remillard single and a walk to Carlos Perez loaded the bases, Raley’s passed ball scored Grandal to bring Chicago within two runs.
“I liked the way the game ended and we scored 11 runs and beat them by one,” Showalter said. “It’s not easy to just go out there and get major-league hitters out. There’s a lot of people who had trouble tonight.”
