Mets can't put all their eggs in one basket with Francisco Alvarez
Francisco Alvarez of the Mets throws the ball to his pitcher late in a game against the Marlins at Citi Field on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Carlos Carrasco remains a mess, Starling Marte got hurt and Francisco Alvarez is going to be seeing Marlins sprinting around the bases in his sleep.
Oh, and the Mets lost, 7-2, on Sunday at Citi Field.
The postgame Easter egg hunt, with kids racing around the outfield grass, baskets under their arms, was way more fun, so at least the team’s families got to salvage that part of the holiday afternoon.
The three hours leading up to those festivities? Very little of it was good, with Alvarez’s first at-bat, when he fought off a 92-mph sinker to punch an RBI single to rightfield, one of the rare highlights.
By then the Mets already trailed 3-1, courtesy of Bryan De La Cruz’s three-run homer in the first inning. They wouldn’t get any closer. And Alvarez’s 2023 debut was all downhill from there, as Miami went 5-for-5 in stolen-base attempts and he went 0-for-3 the rest of the way, including two strikeouts.
Alvarez, the top prospect hustled up to Flushing as an emergency replacement for the injured Omar Narvaez, is going to be an interesting case study for the Mets. On one hand, the 21-year-old needs to play from a development perspective. On the other, the Mets know he’s not ready for this assignment, whether it’s standing beside the plate or behind it, so how do they balance those two conflicting sides at the major-league level?
After Sunday’s loss, Alvarez looked understandably frustrated at his locker. Getting that first hit figured to be huge, but he whiffed on a slider with two runners in scoring position the next time up in the fourth inning. He stranded another at second base in the eighth by going down on three pitches, the last a called strike on Dylan Floro’s 93-mph sinker.
This loss wasn’t on Alvarez’s shoulders, obviously. But that doesn’t spare him from the sting of personal failure, and the Mets have to be wary of him getting discouraged, a concern with any young player.
“I think I have to be able to control the moment a little bit better and not try to do too much,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “Just try to make the right play.”
That’s part of the learning curve, and the ideal situation would be for the Mets to simply carry Alvarez rather than maybe lean on him for production from the bottom of the order. But the Mets’ offense isn’t operating like a well-oiled machine at the start of this season, and it didn’t help Sunday when Marte — one of this lineup’s better functioning parts — had to leave the game after his head collided with Jean Segura’s knee in the first inning.
Marte reached on a double, then smacked his head in stealing third. After a long conversation with the trainer and Buck Showalter, he stayed in but was replaced for the top of the second inning. The Mets announced that Marte was diagnosed with a neck strain and Showalter said he also was being checked out for a concussion (Marte was not available postgame).
“I know the preliminary things looked pretty good,” Showalter said. “But it’s one of those things you keep monitoring as the rest of the day goes on. But so far, so good.”
The Mets still put together a few sporadic threats without Marte, though Pete Alonso’s fifth-inning single was the lone RBI after Alvarez. They stranded 10 and went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position, a pitiful performance against a bad Marlins team.
Unfortunately for Showalter & Co., they won’t see Miami again until Sept. 18 after facing them seven times (5-2) through their first 10 games. Any loss that doesn’t come against Sandy Alcantara — the defending NL Cy Young Award winner — or lefty flamethrower Jesus Luzardo feels like one too many.
As for Carrasco, he’s not even giving the Mets a chance. The Brewers tagged him for five runs in four innings last Monday in Milwaukee and he somehow was worse against the Marlins, serving up six runs in 4 2⁄3 innings. Carrasco puts the blame on his failing splitter/changeup — a key part of his arsenal — but denied that any of his issues are health-related or because of pitch-clock adjustments. He also dismissed the dip in velocity despite his four-seam fastball dropping to 91.1 mph from last year’s 93.2 mph.
“I just need to go out there and pitch,” Carrasco said. “I’m not worried about the velocity.”
Maybe he isn’t, but the Mets should be concerned, as picking up his $14 million option no longer feels like a no-brainer. And now the Mets will have a serious step up in weight class Monday when the Padres arrive for a rematch of last October’s Division Series.
Maybe revenge will be a motivating factor. But something needs to change, starting with Max Scherzer (6.35 ERA) on Monday. Hopefully for the Mets, finding solutions will be as easy as those brightly colored eggs.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
