{"id":805701,"date":"2026-07-17T08:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/805701\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:12:13","slug":"under-hazy-conditions-francisco-alvarez-hits-2-hrs-in-mets-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/805701\/","title":{"rendered":"Under hazy conditions, Francisco Alvarez hits 2 HRs in Mets’ win"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA —Francisco Alvarez<\/a> homered twice, Brett Baty<\/a> also went deep and the New York Mets<\/a> defeated the Phillies<\/a> 4-1<\/a>on Thursday night in the first major league game following the All-Star break.<\/p>\n

The game started at 6:10 p.m. ET instead of 7:10, and the teams played under a hazy sky with diminishing air quality because of smoke that moved into the region from wildfires burning in Canada and Minnesota.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely different,” Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper<\/a> said during the ESPN telecast while wearing a microphone on the field during the top of the second inning. “They don’t really move games too much. But not the greatest idea, I guess, to come out here and play in this type of weather, but you know, we’re doing it.”<\/p>\n

It was the second time wildfire smoke has affected a game in Philadelphia. In June 2023, a game between Detroit<\/a> and Philadelphia was postponed<\/a> because of poor air quality related to smoke from Canadian wildfires.<\/p>\n

After his team’s victory, Mets interim manager Andy Green was asked how the conditions affected the game.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think they really did,” Green said. “I think it felt like they could have at any moment, especially as visibility got tougher. But, guys managed to see baseballs that I couldn’t when they went up in the air as popups. So, good thing we’ve got good athletes on the field that can see things.”<\/p>\n

Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said tracking fly balls later in the game seemed to become an issue.<\/p>\n

“It didn’t seem to be a huge problem,” Mattingly said. “The vision, later on, was a little bit like foggy conditions more than the air quality. As far as the guys were concerned [visibility] seemed to be the problem.”<\/p>\n

New York slugger Juan Soto<\/a> was removed in the eighth because of left calf soreness, but Green said the All-Star outfielder is expected to be back in the lineup this weekend. Soto missed about 2 weeks in April with a right calf strain.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA —Francisco Alvarez homered twice, Brett Baty also went deep and the New York Mets defeated the Phillies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[379107,379106,64,63,794,591,1830,44,2365,85],"class_list":["post-805701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-379107","tag-alvarez-francisco","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-news","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}