A return home — or was it the Mets’ pitching staff? — was the perfect antidote for what ailed Pedro Alvarez.
The Washington Heights product and Horace Mann graduate came to Queens hitting a sickly .168, engulfed in an 0-for-14 skid. He leaves suddenly red-hot, above the Mendoza Line at .203 and able to look at his average on the scoreboard without cringing after lashing six hits in 11 at-bats as the Pirates took three of four from the Mets in the weekend series.
Alvarez made sure the two teams didn’t split the four-game set. The Pirates’ second overall pick in the 2008 draft out of Vanderbilt, the power-hitting third baseman had another big day in Sunday’s 3-2 victory, driving in the game-winning run with a lined single to left-center off Mets closer Bobby Parnell in the eighth inning.
Alvarez also doubled to the wall in center field off phenom Matt Harvey in the second.
In each of his three starts — Alvarez sat out Saturday’s win with southpaw Jon Niese on the hill — he had two hits.
“The last few days I’ve been feeling more comfortable at the plate,”
he said. “I’m just trying to keep a simple approach. Just see the ball and hit the ball.”
Despite Alvarez’s early-season struggles — he began the year 3-for-41
— Pirates manager Clint Hurdle has kept Alvarez in the lineup and even batted him cleanup on occasion. This weekend reinforced Hurdle’s confidence.
“Faith is believing in things you can’t see, and there’s times you’ve got to believe in players, even when they’re not giving you the things that they should give you,” Hurdle said. “And Pedro knows there’s a lot of people that believe in him here. Sometimes we’ve got to be the ones that keep pushing that belief bus for him.
“You see the ball come off the bat like it does when he hits it,” the manager went on. “To be able to drive a run in late like that to the opposite field [and] just such a clean swing to drive a ball earlier in the game. So he can hit. We’re just trying to [get] him to do it [with] a little bit more consistency.”
Alvarez was able to spend time with his family this weekend and eat a home-cooked meal. Though he tries not to put any extra pressure on himself to perform well in front of his friends and family, he did say it was sweet to snap his skid in front of them.
“It’s always good to come back home,” Alvarez said, “and to have a good series kind of puts the icing on the cake.”
zbraziller@nypost.com