Monday's split double the fun for Mets kids Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez
Mets third baseman Brett Baty celebrates in the dugout after scoring against Atlanta in the fifth inning of Game 2 of a doubleheader at Citi Field on Monday. Credit: Noah K. Murray
Big picture, the two headliners in Metsville this week are Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, with the pair of $43 million co-aces set to return during the upcoming series in Detroit. Both have health-related questions to answer, and the season to some degree hangs on these performances against the Tigers.
But moving away from the Mets’ rotation for a minute, sort of like averting your eyes from a five-car pileup on the LIE, there were a couple of encouraging signs for the struggling lineup in Monday’s doubleheader split with Atlanta at a finally dry Citi Field.
Namely Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez, the two youngsters tasked with rescuing the Mets from a few April sinkholes.
Baty figured to make the more immediate impact, considering he was wrongly left off the Opening Day roster. He continued to do so on Monday with three more hits, including a homer in the 9-8 Game 1 loss. For Alvarez, who delivered the go-ahead two-run double in the sixth inning of the Mets’ 5-3 win in Game 2, it’s more about the constant fight to live up to the hype along with chipping in.
“We all want to get the job done,” Francisco Lindor said. “We all want to feel like part of the team. And for a guy like [Alvarez] that’s an offense-first player, you want to do something to help in that way.”
The Mets actually made that particularly difficult for Alvarez — MLB’s top overall prospect — by summoning him last-minute on the final weekend last season and then scrapping their plans for his development by abruptly promoting him to replace the injured Omar Narvaez earlier this month.
Combine that with his playing schedule — inexplicably having Alvarez split time with the .111-hitting Tomas Nido — and this process has been anything but smooth.
But after looking overwhelmed in his early at-bats, Alvarez does appear more settled in the batter’s box of late. And regardless of how much his approach gets better and the game slows down, there’s no greater confidence-builder than tangible results.
“I think for me, when I first got called up, you want to do a lot just to prove you belong here,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “But as time goes on, you realize this is all the same . . . it’s playing baseball. That’s been able to keep me more at ease at the plate.”
The term manager Buck Showalter used to describe Alvarez’s initial adjustment was the effort to avoid “emotional at-bats” — the adrenaline surge that can make the moment too big for a young player. It’s not unique to Alvarez, of course. But when a rookie is saddled with sky-high expectations, they can be especially tough to rein in.
That’s why Alvarez’s two-out double on an 0-and-1 slider from Atlanta reliever Michael Tonkin could turn out to be such a noteworthy mile marker in his development.
“I hope you’re right,” Showalter said regarding that notion. “It can’t hurt. It’s a big blow for us. He’s got so much want-to working that sometimes he can’t get out of his own way . . . He’s got a good track record hitting. We’ll see if it carries over to the next level.”
We’re not sure what else Showalter needs to see from Baty, who destroyed Triple-A pitching for Syracuse and quickly has become one of the Mets’ most dangerous hitters.
That’s not hyperbole either. In Game 1, Baty launched a 430-foot homer off reliever Dylan Lee, becoming the Mets’ first lefty to go deep off a lefthanded pitcher this season. After following that with a seventh-inning single, Baty put up another solid at-bat against a lefty in A.J. Minter, but his 106-mph liner was smacked directly at rightfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. for the final out of the 9-8 loss.
“The way I view lefties is they have to come over the plate at some point to throw strikes,” said Baty, who is hitting .333 (13-for-39) with two homers and a .919 OPS through 12 games. “So whenever they do, I’m going to try to hit it hard and hit it all over the ballpark. So whether it’s a righty or lefty on the mound, I don’t really care. If you come over the plate, I’m going to try and do damage with it.”
Baty did the same in Game 2, pulling a 103-mph double off Charlie Morton and later scoring to put the Mets up 2-0 in the fifth inning. He’s making a pretty convincing case to not only play more regularly but to move up in the Mets’ order as well.
Entering Monday, the Mets’ .240 batting average ranked 20th in the majors, their .384 slugging sat at 19th and their 4.52 runs per game was 15th. Baty’s recent surge should help change that, as would giving Alvarez the bulk of the starts at catcher. As these two showed Monday, the Mets need more of the future right now.
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.
