Francisco Alvarez brought out the power bat again Thursday — but he also was beaned.
The Mets’ rookie catcher homered for the third straight game in the Amazin’s 9-0 win when he took Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson deep for a two-run homer in the third inning.
But in the seventh inning, after Alvarez had added a run-scoring single in the fifth, he stepped in against reliever Jose Ruiz and took an up-and-in 97-mph fastball off the hand or elbow.
A perturbed Alvarez seemed to take exception to the plunking and stared Ruiz down.
He walked slowly down the first base line with his bat before home plate umpire Tripp Gibson intervened in front of the 21-year-old.
At that point, the Mets — including manager Buck Showalter — stormed out of the dugout and bullpen to the foul line, and they were eventually joined by players and coaches from Arizona.
As Alvarez stood on first, Tommy Pham and Showalter talked to the youngster, and things dissipated without any ejections.
Alvarez hit two mammoth homers for the Mets in the first two games in Arizona, including a two-out game-tying blast in the ninth inning Wednesday.
In the Wednesday blast, he carried his bat a good chunk of the way down the first base line, and then, as the ball cleared the wall, Alvarez turned to the Mets’ dugout and flexed his muscles.
Mets third base coach Joey Cora told the young backstop before the game to tone things down in certain situations, like in Wednesday’s case, when the game was still tied.
“[Cora] just said that emotions are good to have in a game, but let’s also keep in mind that at that point there was still a lot of game to be played since it was only a home run to tie the game,” Alvarez said through an interpreter before the Mets’ win.
“If it’s one of those things where we take the lead by two runs or three runs, it’s more appropriate to do, but at that point we had to kind of stay locked into the game.”
“[Cora] pulled me aside [Thursday] when we were more relaxed and he just said, ‘We have to understand the situations of the game,’” Alvarez added. “It wasn’t in a bad way. He wasn’t getting on me. He wasn’t trying to teach me a lesson. It was just to give me some good advice to say I have got to zone back into the game.”
It’s not the first time the Venezuelan native made headlines for his celebrations.
In 2021, while playing in the minors with the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones, Alvarez himself admitted he “disrespected” the Yankees’ Hudson Valley affiliate when he bat-flipped after a titanic homer.
Celebrations or not, Alvarez now has 16 homers this season, the second-most for a catcher in an age 21 season or younger, trailing only Hall of Famer Johnny Bench.
