Francisco Alvarez’s clutch defensive plays seal Mets’ win — with controversy

Francisco Alvarez’s recent offensive woes haven’t impacted him behind the plate.

Thursday night, he made two big plays to help decide the latest Mets victory.

The young catcher threw out Whit Merrifield trying to steal third base in the ninth inning and perfectly executed a rundown on a failed suicide-squeeze attempt an inning later in his team’s fourth straight victory, a 3-2 win over the rival Braves at Citi Field .

On a night the Mets didn’t do much offensively against ace left-hander Chris Sale, Alvarez’s defense was pivotal.

“That’s what makes him such an important part of this team,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Not only him, but [Luis] Torrens behind the plate. Both of them. They can shut down the running game. We saw it today. … [Merrifield] is a really good base-stealer, especially stealing third base, he’s really good at it. And for ‘Alvy’ to come up throwing like that and put him away, for me that was a huge part of the game.”

With one out in the ninth and Merrifield on second base in a tie game, he took off.

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Alvarez threw a laser.

The play was reviewed — it was somewhat uncertain whether third baseman Mark Vientos tagged the pinch runner in time — but the call on the field stood .

In the 10th, Alvarez came up big again.

Ramon Laureano was on third base with one out and took off with the pitch.

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It was a suicide squeeze.

But reliever Phil Maton’s pitch was up and away, and Jarred Kelenic held the bat back after showing bunt.

Alvarez immediately ran at Laureano. He fired to Vientos, who then threw to Alvarez who slapped the tag on Laureano.

Laureano gave the Mets’ catcher a shove by leading with his shoulder, and the two briefly exchanged words.

“He hit me hard, and I stood up,” Alvarez recalled.

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Laureano then apologized to Alvarez, and further incident was avoided.

The Mets got out of the inning and won it in the bottom half of the frame when Laureano overran a Jeff McNeil fly ball down the right-field line.

It has been a struggle at the plate this month for Alvarez.

He has a .639 OPS and just four extra-base hits. But he hasn’t taken those problems into the field with him, as the latest Mets’ win showed.

In fact, Alvarez takes particular pride in his defense, saying he would prefer to throw out a runner trying to steal in an important situation than getting a big hit.

So, while he of course would’ve liked to do better than his 0-for-3 night at the plate, he was all smiles after the win.

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