Alvarez to IL with thumb sprain, hopes to return for stretch run

WASHINGTON -- Catcher Francisco Alvarez could miss the rest of this season after injuring his right thumb on Sunday, but Mets officials are hopeful he can delay surgery long enough to contribute to the team’s playoff run.

Alvarez, whom the Mets placed on the injured list Tuesday with an ulnar collateral ligament sprain in his right thumb, will refrain from baseball activities for 10-14 games. After that point, he will restart a hitting progression and eventually graduate to Minor League rehab games, where team officials will gauge if he can effectively play through his injury.

If so, Alvarez could return to the Mets at some point in September.

“Time will tell,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.

While the Mets could send Alvarez to the operating room right away, three doctors who evaluated him agreed that there’s little harm in letting him play through the injury. Either way, Alvarez will undergo thumb surgery after the season; the worst-case scenario would be him tearing his UCL completely and having the operation sooner.

The operation carries a recovery timetable of around eight weeks, so surgery now would end Alvarez’s season. He will be ready for the start of Spring Training regardless of when he has it.

“He wants to give it a try,” Mendoza said. “We’re hopeful that he can play through this, but we’ve just got to wait and see.”

Part of the Mets’ optimism stems from the fact that former Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia tore the UCL in his left thumb on Opening Day in 2013 and not only managed to play the entire season, but won a World Series title along the way. While Pedroia had a down year in the power department, he still made the American League All-Star team, earned a Gold Glove and finished seventh in MVP voting.

Unlike Pedroia’s injury, Alvarez’s is to his throwing hand. But team officials see that as a positive, since Alvarez won’t need to endure the pounding of 100-plus pitches per night on an injured thumb.

“The throwing, we don’t think it’s going to be the issue,” Mendoza said. “It’s more swinging the bat and gripping the bat. That’s why we’re still optimistic, because it’s not the receiving hand.”

Still, Mendoza admitted, Alvarez “was pretty frustrated” that he hurt his thumb sliding into second base during the seventh inning of Sunday’s win over the Mariners in the Little League Classic. The injury occurred during Alvarez’s best offensive stretch since his rookie season. After returning from a brief stretch at Triple-A Syracuse, Alvarez hit .323/.408/.645 in 21 games prior to his injury.

Hand issues are nothing new for Alvarez, who has had two surgeries over the past two years. In 2024, he missed nearly two months after undergoing surgery to repair a similar sprain -- that one to his left thumb. Alvarez also fractured his left hamate bone this spring, had surgery and missed the first month of the regular season.

For as long as Alvarez is sidelined this time around, Luis Torrens will serve as the Mets’ starting catcher, as he has whenever Alvarez has been unavailable the past two seasons. The Mets also called up rookie Hayden Senger to be Torrens’ backup.

One of the game’s top defensive catchers, Torrens has been a force all season throwing out baserunners. But he has batted just .214/.280/.301 in 76 games.

"He’s a good player,” Mendoza said. “He showed it last year when we acquired him. He was a big part of this team at the beginning of the year -- him and Senger both -- when we were winning a lot of games. We’re going to need those guys to step up now.”