Francisco Alvarez Two Home Runs End a 26-Day Drought
The Mets catcher hit .125 for four weeks and kept squatting behind the plate every night anyway. That habit is the one a young catcher can copy.
Every catcher eventually learns that hitting and catching are two separate jobs. The bat goes quiet sometimes. The glove never does. Francisco Alvarez hit two home runs on Friday night at Citi Field, and the New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants 10-6.
Before Friday, he had not homered since August 9.
Alvarez kept his lineup spot through a .125 month
Alvarez is 24 and catches most days for a Mets team chasing a playoff spot. He hit 25 home runs in 2023 during his first full season in Queens.
No rookie catcher in franchise history had ever hit more. The National League named him its Rookie of the Month that July, after he hit eight home runs and drove in 16 runs.
This season asks a harder question. He tore the meniscus in his knee in May, then came back on June 9, well ahead of the projection. On August 14 we covered his return and the hot stretch that followed.
But the hot stretch ended. Alvarez batted .125 over the 26 days between home runs. That is seven hits in 56 at-bats.
Here is where the slump left his season line.
| G | AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 320 | .234 | .319 | .413 | 15 | 36 |
2026 season, including Friday’s two home runs.
Two swings on Friday ended the drought
In the second inning Alvarez stayed closed on a pitch and drove it 412 feet into right-center. The direction is the tell. A hitter who is pulling off the ball does not hit the ball there.
Then in the eighth, against Giants reliever Yunior Marte, Alvarez hit a solo home run to left to make it 10-6.
Mark Vientos, third baseman Bo Bichette and Francisco Lindor also went deep, so New York matched its season high of five home runs in a game. The Mets scored 10 runs for the second game in a row.
Alvarez caught every one of McLean’s career-high 105 pitches
Alvarez spent the rest of the night doing the other half of the job. He caught Nolan McLean for six innings of two-run ball and all 105 pitches of McLean’s career high pitch count, on the way to McLean’s 11th win.
The pitch count is the number worth sitting with. Catching is attrition work — the foul tips, the balls in the dirt, the setup and the reset, 105 times in one night — and none of that lets up when the bat goes cold. McLean left after six with the highest pitch count of his career. Not one of those 105 pitches asked anything of his catcher’s batting average.
Seven multi-homer games before 25 put Alvarez next to Gary Carter
Alvarez has now homered twice in a game seven times as a catcher before turning 25. Sarah Langs, who researches statistics for MLB, put the list together. Gary Carter also had seven. Carter is in the Hall of Fame, and he caught the Mets to the 1986 World Series title.
One name still sits above them both. Johnny Bench had eight. Bench was the Cincinnati catcher whose name is now on the award given each year to the best catcher in college baseball.
Alvarez turns 25 on November 19. There’s time left in the season to either tie, or surpass Bench’s multi-home-run games record.
He never stopped being the Mets’ catcher during those 26 days. He kept squatting, kept calling the game, kept taking the foul tips, and on Friday he hit two home runs. That is the habit to copy.
Your average will go quiet at some point during the season. When it does, the mask is still yours, and so is the pitcher who needs you.
Try this at your next practice
- Opposite-field tee ladder. Set the tee on the outside third of the plate and hit ten line drives into the opposite gap. Only then move the tee back toward the middle of the plate and hit ten more. When you pull off the ball, the front shoulder flies open and everything goes foul down the left-field line. This drill makes you feel the shoulder stay closed, and it is the same swing that put Alvarez’s second-inning ball into right-center.
- The dugout-door rule. After every at-bat, before you sit down, say out loud the first pitch you want to call the next inning. Ten seconds, every time. It forces the switch from hitter back to catcher, which is the exact switch Alvarez had to make game after game for four weeks.
- Block reps on your worst hitting day. On the day you go 0-for-4 in a game or a scrimmage, take fifteen blocking reps afterward instead of taking extra swings. The habit you want is the one that shows up when the bat is cold, and you cannot build it on the days you are already hitting.
Sources: Alvarez hits two homers, Mets go deep five times in win over Giants (AP via TSN) · Giants at Mets box score, September 4, 2026 (ESPN) · McLean spins career-high 105 pitches in gutsy win vs. Giants (MLB.com) · Mets’ Francisco Alvarez Ties Legend, Nears Johnny Bench in Baseball History (Yahoo Sports) · Francisco Alvarez 2026 hitting stats (MLB Stats API).