New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez added another first to his career in Monday night’s 4-3 win over the Orioles when he hit his first career walk-off hit, a 421-foot home run off Baltimore’s freshman closer Seranthony Dominguez. But that wasn’t the main reason why this home run was so significant in franchise history.

One of the worst things a batter can do is swing at a 3-0 pitch and get an out on that pitch, wasting the best pitch count possible in an at-bat. But the free-swinging Alvarez did it anyway, making Mets history in the process while giving the fans and his teammates an incredible pimp-job celebration.

Keep in mind that pitch count history has only been complete since 1988, when the company Stats LLC (now known as Stats Perform) began tracking them full-time. Since then, there have been 17 walk-off home runs in 3-0 counts by other teams in the regular season and before Monday night (by 17 different players) and one in the postseason (Tony Pena’s walk-off in Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS for Cleveland).

Pena and Alvarez are also the only two catchers with such home runs in the regular season or postseason, with Alvarez’s home run being the first by a catcher in the regular season.

The earliest walk-off home run ever recorded in a 3-0 count was hit by ex-Met Kevin Mitchell in 1990 for the Giants against his former team, while Nick Maton achieved the most recent such success in April 2023 for the Tigers against the Giants and star closer Camillo Doval.

It takes a lot of courage to swing at a 3-0 pitch when the batter has a 50 percent chance of reaching base if he doesn’t swing and the batting average on balls in play is lower than that. But whatever calculation Mets analysts or manager Carlos Mendoza used to give Alvarez the green light, for which he was grateful after the game, it was pure genius.

But let’s be honest. The saying “nothing ventured, nothing gained” applied to the Mets on Monday as they attempted to make the playoffs. The way the game played should have led a Mets fan to believe that they probably would have lost the game had it gone to overtime. The Mets had given up a 3-run lead and used Edwin Diaz in the 9th inning, suggesting that the Orioles would have taken advantage in the 10th inning or later.

But with one brave blow, Francisco Alvarez changed the headlines in New York, even if it only lasted one night.