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It may have taken a bit but Pete Alonso is starting to carry a lot of the Mets’ offensive load in this postseason, and it wasn’t more apparent than in Tuesday’s NLDS Game 3 win against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Mets entered the bottom half of the second inning still tied at 0-0, but after the sting of Sunday’s loss — and starter Sean Manaea getting hit hard in the early going — New York needed to take the lead and put pressure on the Phillies.
Enter Alonso.
On the first pitch to lead off the inning, the slugging first baseman took Aaron Nola deep, hitting a 94 mph four-seam fastball the opposite way over the right-field wall. The blast put the Mets up 1-0 and got an already raucous Citi Field crowd into a frenzy.
Tuesday was the second consecutive game Alonso hit a homer, and the third in four postseason games going back to the Wild Card round against the Milwaukee Brewers when he sent the Mets to the NLDS with his late-inning heroics.
Although 2024 was a down season by Alonso’s standards, longtime Mets fans and his own teammates know that when he gets on a power streak he’s one of the most dangerous hitters in the game and it usually means very good things for the team.
“He’s on,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of Alonso after the game. “And I think we’ve been saying it the whole year. He can carry a team. He can carry us. And we’re here because of that big swing he got in Milwaukee. And then today, first pitch he sees off a really good pitcher in Nola, he goes the other way, and he goes with ease.”
“I’m just happy that I put a good swing on the ball,” Alonso said of his home run. “Me and Aaron go way back. He knows me and I know him. He’s a great talented pitcher. I’m just happy that I was able to come through for the team right there.”
Of Alonso’s 34 homers this season, only three went the opposite way. So far this postseason, all three of his home runs have been to the opposite field.
When asked if those types of home runs are a sign of him being “locked in,” the slugger says it’s more about him putting a good swing on a ball. And since tonight’s home run pitch was away, he went that way. But he did offer this quick assessment.
“If I’m hitting balls the other way it’s a good sign.”
“As soon as he hit it, everybody in the ballpark knew that ball was gone,” Mendoza said. “That’s not easy to do on a night where the ball seems like it wasn’t going to travel as much after [Kyle] Schwarber hits 107 [mph off the bat] and doesn’t even make it to the warning track. Then Pete connects that one and he’s out of the ballpark.”
Schwarber’s 391-foot, first-inning flyout wasn’t the only ball hit hard that resulted in an out. Francisco Lindor smashed a 387-foot blast to center field 101 mph off the bat that flew out in the first as well.
“Well, I hit my ball pretty hard and it didn’t go out, and then he comes in and hits oppo home run, so I was like, ‘Well, I guess that’s how you do it,” Lindor said with a broad smile. “Pete is Pete. He’s special, he’s one of the better power hitters in the game that we have had in a while. He came in and he got a good pitch, he had a game plan, he executed it and hit a home run.”
Tape-measure flyouts aside, Alonso’s only hit on Tuesday was his first-inning blast but he contributed to the team in other ways. He walked twice and set up the team to score in two different innings.
The Alonso who struggled in the regular season would have struck out on pitches out of the zone, killing any rally. But something has clicked in Alonso over the last few games and it’s showing in his at-bats.
He worked a six-pitch walk in the sixth to load the bases, which eventually set up Starling Marte’s two-out, two-run single. Alonso then worked a four-pitch walk in the seventh to load the bases again, and Jose Iglesias hit a two-out, two-run single in the next at-bat to put the game away.
“When he does [get on a hot streak] he can carry a team,” Brandon Nimmo said Alonso. “You saw again tonight him hitting another home run, he gets on these rolls where whenever he touches one it’s coming off hot. We’re hoping that this continues. He’s putting up great at-bats. He had some amazing at-bats where he ended up walking later in the game and put us in a great position to score more runs. When he’s doing that he’s a dangerous hitter and I’m extremely proud of him.”
With the Mets one win away from their first NLCS since 2015, the team hopes they can count on Alonso’s power streak to continue as this miracle postseason run continues on Wednesday.
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