Since his promotion to Triple-A, Francisco Álvarez has struggled relatively at the plate. Over his first nine games, he was only hitting .111/.333/.185.

That included a recent 0-for-10 stretch. Unfortunately, with numbers like those, the Mets were not going to be forced into promoting him to the majors. That’s even with James McCann’s injury.

All that said, Álvarez was not being overpowered. In fact, he was striking out 28% of the time and walking 20.5% of the time. With a .167 BABIP, you could see a breakout coming.

We saw he might be coming around as he hit a go-ahead RBI double in his sixth inning at-bat in the July 22 game against the Worcester Red Sox. In his next plate appearance, he drew a walk.

Álvarez got going in his previous game, and he might’ve announced he’s ready to go on a tear. In the fifth inning, Álvarez came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. He then unloaded on a Durbin Feltman pitch, and he unloaded the bases:

This was Álvarez’s first Triple-A homer. It was also his third extra-base hit. With that blast, he doubled his RBI total with Syracuse. This was yet another step, a very important step.

For the second straight game, Álvarez had a go-ahead extra base hit. For the second straight game, Álvarez showed he’s figuring it out and is moving closer to forcing his way up to the majors.

How quickly he gets to Queens is going to be dependent on a number of factors. Chief among them is just how much these past two games will represent a breakout for Álvarez.

If this is indeed a breakout, with the positive reviews from Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer regarding his work behind the plate, we may see him sooner than anyone anticipated.