SAN FRANCISCO — The Mets needed a big hit and Francisco Alvarez needed one for himself.

He belted his first home run of the 2023 season and the second of his career Sunday night in the Mets’ 5-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park. It tied the game for the Mets and gave them a chance, but Drew Smith (1-1) struggled in the eighth and allowed an RBI double to Joc Pederson. The Mets went down quietly in the ninth as Camilo Doval converted the save.

The Mets (14-9) went 7-3 over a 10-game trip, dropping the last two to split the series with the Giants (11-13).

Alvarez’s home run was the highlight of the game for the visitors. The Mets’ top prospect has been billed as a power-hitting catcher since he was signed out of Venezuela five years ago. The power has been obvious at every level of baseball except for the Major League level, though he showed a preview of it last fall during a late-season call-up.

The Mets were hoping a year in Triple-A would help him hone his power even more and allow him to mash big-league pitchers. But the plans changed when catcher Omar Narvaez was injured in Milwaukee in the Mets’ second series of the season. The Mets had little choice but to bring up Alvarez and stick with him, despite the fact that the 21-year-old came into Sunday’s game against San Francisco hitting just .130.

But Alvarez took Giants reliever Tyler Rogers over the left field fence to tie the final game of a four-game series at 4-4 in the sixth inning Sunday at Oracle Park.

Tylor Megill was mostly effective but struggled enough for the Mets to replace him after four innings. Megill needed 81 pitches to get through four innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits, walking one and striking out two. Jeff Brigham bailed out Megill and the Mets’ bullpen, throwing two perfect innings.

Megill allowed one run in each of the first two innings. Francisco Lindor’s RBI double in the third cut the San Francisco lead to 2-1 and the Mets overtook them in the fourth, pushing two runs over with back-to-back sacrifice fly balls.

The Giants came right back in the bottom of the frame to score two, with Blake Sabol scoring Thairo Estrada on a single to right and Brandon Crawford coming home on a force-out by Brett Wisely to make it 4-3.

Rogers, a right-handed submariner, was difficult for the Mets to pick up. Daniel Vogelbach and Brett Baty both looked at called third strikes before Alvarez came up to the plate. Alvarez swung at the first pitch he saw — a slider — and lifted it over the left field fence.

The Mets will now return home to start a series against the Washington Nationals on Tuesday.

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