Francisco Alvarez’s clutch defensive plays seal Mets’ win — with controversy

Francisco Alvarez’s recent offensive woes haven’t impacted him behind the plate.

Thursday night, he made two big plays to help decide the latest Mets victory.

The young catcher threw out Whit Merrifield trying to steal third base in the ninth inning and perfectly executed a rundown on a failed suicide-squeeze attempt an inning later in his team’s fourth straight victory, a 3-2 win over the rival Braves at Citi Field.

On a night the Mets didn’t do much offensively against ace left-hander Chris Sale, Alvarez’s defense was pivotal.

“That’s what makes him such an important part of this team,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Not only him, but [Luis] Torrens behind the plate. Both of them. They can shut down the running game. We saw it today. … [Merrifield] is a really good base-stealer, especially stealing third base, he’s really good at it. And for ‘Alvy’ to come up throwing like that and put him away, for me that was a huge part of the game.”

With one out in the ninth and Merrifield on second base in a tie game, he took off.