Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez is going through a rough stretch at the plate and manager Carlos Mendoza said the causes of the catcher’s struggles have been “a little bit of everything.”
“There’s times where he’s chasing, there’s times where he’s late on pitches that he can do damage with,” the manager said before Wednesday’s game at Citi Field against the Oakland A’s. “I think he’s going through it and he’s searching a little bit.”
Alvarez went through a bit of a dip in June after he came off the IL following thumb surgery, but hit his stride leading up to the All-Star break pulling his average up to .296 from .217 and OPS up from .579 to .835.
During that hot 22-game stretch, the catcher batted .370 with a 1.084 OPS.
But he has struggled mightily since the four-day mid-summer sojourn: In his last 17 games, he has just 10 hits in 60 at-bats (.167) with only two extra-base hits (.444 OPS).
Alvarez has just two hits in his last 15 at-bats and is hitless over his last 11 trips to the plate.
Worryingly for a batter who doesn’t walk much already, he has just two walks to 19 strikeouts during that span. (He walked 11 times to 21 strikeouts during his earlier hot run at the plate.)
On the season overall, Alvarez’s hard hit percentage is down to 38.8 percent from 45.1 percent last year, his barrel percentage is down to 6.1 from 12.8 in 2023, and his soft contact percentage is up nearly five percent to 18.4 percent.
The 22-year-old has slightly cut his whiff percentage (down 0.8 to 31), but he is swinging at more pitches out of the zone (29.4 percent chase rate up 3.3 percent from 2023).
Mendoza said it was “good to see” Alvarez out on Wednesday for early batting practice, and that the catcher is “working really hard” with the Mets’ hitting coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes.
“The good thing is, we’re seeing the same guy: good spirit, positive,” the manager continued. “And he knows how much he means to the ballclub. He wants to contribute.”
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