More than once this year, I’ve thought to myself that Pete Alonso [1] would probably be more of a hitter if he were less of a teammate.
But Alonso isn’t capable of that. He cares about his teammates, about the only organization he’s ever known, and yes, about us lunatics in the stands. He wants to come through for all of us, so much that he puts too much on his shoulders. We’ve all seen the results: tentative ABs turning into overaggressive ones, or fly balls that are harmless because he tried to hit one to the moon when one three-millionth of that distance would have sufficed.
I’ve worried about that in the last few weeks, but I’ve also noticed some other things. I noticed that Alonso had become Francisco Lindor [2]‘s best friend at first, scooping balls out of the dirt with Lindor’s compromised back affecting his throws. And I noticed that Alonso mostly wasn’t falling prey to those I ALONE CAN FIX IT ABs that ambush him from time to time. He was working good counts and refusing to fish for balls he couldn’t do anything with.
He wasn’t being rewarded with big hits, but I saw enough that I kept hoping.
And I hoped for something more: that maybe Alonso, in watching the heroics of Lindor and Jose Iglesias [3] and Luisangel Acuna [4] and so many other teammates, would internalize something he’s always known intellectually but never seemed to quite accept emotionally: that he is not in fact alone, that he is a critical piece but still part of a collective whole, that teammates will pick him up if he fails and trust him to do the same.
Sit with that a moment; we’ll come back to it.
Most of Thursday night’s winner-take-all showdown in Milwaukee was an agony of misfires. The Mets couldn’t scratch against Tobias Myers [5], whose four-seamer had the kind of movement that kept them just missing balls — I lost count of the number of balls that looked good off the bat only to die in outfielders’ gloves. Myers pitched five innings and all of two Mets reached base: Lindor doubled to lead off the game and later singled, and Milwaukee fan favorite Jesse Winker [6] got hit with a pitch.
Fortunately, Jose Quintana [7] equaled Myers. Quintana didn’t look great early, dealing with a lot of traffic, but as the game went on he saw that the Brewers were chasing more than they usually do, and so started tormenting them with changeups in the dirt and fastballs off the plate.
It was a gutty, canny performance, one I appreciated even more because Quintana’s 2024 taught me an important lesson: Don’t be so quick to write guys off. Back when things looked dire I disparaged Quintana (and some of his mound mates) as a feckless nibbler; when he went through a rough stretch in early August I would gladly have driven him to the airport myself if it meant we could be rid of him.
That wasn’t fair for any number of reasons, but two important ones are that I paid no heed to how much pride Quintana takes in his craft, or to how much work Jeremy Hefner [8] and the Mets braintrust put into monitoring their pitchers, figuring out what’s working and what isn’t, and being patient as guys figure out adjustments. That’s been true of Quintana, of Sean Manaea [9], of David Peterson [10], of Tylor Megill [11], of Ryne Stanek [12] — to say nothing of the nightly drama around Edwin Diaz [13], his mechanics and his psyche.
Quintana kept the Mets in it and handed the ball over to Jose Butto [14], who’s made strides as a pitcher but is still in the blurry space between roles: no longer a starter (at least for now) but not yet truly a reliever. Butto needs more time between appearances than a typical setup guy, and given the crazy rollercoaster ride of the last week more time hasn’t been available. He entered a scoreless game in the seventh and on two pitches put the Mets in a 2-0 hole: Jake Bauers [15] clobbered a changeup sitting in the middle of the plate and Sal Frelick [16] took a four-seamer over the fence.
Diaz got the Mets out of the inning without allowing anything else, though he didn’t exactly look crisp himself, and the Mets could do nothing against Freddy Peralta [17], pressed into service as a bridge to Devin Williams [18].
Had I given up when Williams took the mound? I hadn’t — partially out of stubbornness but also because this edition of the Mets had engineered crazier escapes. The key, I kept thinking to myself, was Lindor: He had to find a way to get on base. Fortunately, he was the player I trusted most to do it.
And after that? That’s where my belief got a lot shakier. But I knew Mark Vientos [19] had power, and he’d seen his share of big moments. Hadn’t Brandon Nimmo [20] hit a mammoth home run off Raisel Iglesias [21] just a couple of Met fan heart attacks ago? And then there was Alonso, whom no ballpark can hold if he gets a hold of one.
I figured the most likely outcome was Lindor reaching first, or maybe second, and the season ending with a last shot of him disconsolate amid blue and yellow celebrants. But I also kept telling myself that wasn’t the only possible outcome.
Lindor’s leadoff AB against Williams a clinic from a player who knew exactly what had to be accomplished and was bending every ounce of his will to the task. Williams got to 1-2 using the formula that’s been so successful for him: that intimidating four-seam fastball up and that deadly changeup down, so a hitter has to be geared up to simultaneously cover the top and bottom of the strike zone and negotiate a 10 MPH difference in speed. Lindor refused to expand the strike zone, fighting back to 3-2, fought off a pair of four-seamers that had the plate, then looked at one outside for the walk.
That brought up Vientos, who had no chance against the four-seamer after being tantalized with a trio of changeups. (Hey, it happens — guys don’t roll to a 1.25 ERA by accident.) Williams tried the same program against Nimmo, but the third changeup got too much plate on 0-2 and Nimmo smacked it into right field for a single.
And so up came Pete.
The first pitch was a changeup down the middle, and it looked like Alonso’s knees sagged a bit. Don’t help him! I entreated the Polar Bear from 700-odd miles away. And Alonso didn’t — he spat on two four-seamers at the top of the zone as well as a changeup in on his hands. None of them was a pitch he could have done anything with — two pop-ups in waiting and a grounder. That was good; so was seeing Alonso have the kind of AB I’d kept noticing of late, albeit with little to show for it.
Maybe this time would be different. Ya gotta believe, right?
Don’t help him! I said again, unheard as always.
Williams threw another changeup, toward the outer edge of the plate but getting a fair bit of it, and Alonso connected.
This wasn’t one of those majestic shots pulled and headed for orbit. It was an opposite-field line drive. Did I think the ball was going out? Honestly, I was too disoriented and scared to be able to make a judgment like that. It was struck well and in flight, but Frelick was out there and I registered that the outfield fence had a little jog in it, and suddenly there were too many possibilities to catalog: into Frelick’s glove through a cruel quirk of the dimensions, over his glove and off the wall and what kind of jump did Lindor and Nimmo get …
… or, just maybe, over the fence.
Alonso made a chef’s kiss gesture and ran around the bases to be greeted by a conga line of happy Mets. Whatever Insurance It Is Field fell into a shocked hush; at the Citi Field watch party popcorn was flying and strangers were jumping and hugging [22]; at the Playwright up in Midtown, the 7 Line was a screaming blizzard of orange and blue [23]. And in a living room in Brooklyn Heights, I was jumping up and down like a maniac screaming and scaring the neighbors.
Here, for posterity, is Howie Rose’s call [24]:
Here’s the pitch … swing and a fly ball to right field, pretty well hit. Frelick back, at the wall, he jumps — and it’s GONE! HE DID IT! HE DID IT! PETE ALONSO WITH THE MOST MEMORABLE HOME RUN OF HIS CAREER! PUMPS HIS FIST AS HE ROUNDS SECOND! IT’S A THREE-RUN HOMER! HE’S GIVEN THE METS A THREE TO TWO LEAD! THEY ALL POUR OUT OF THE DUGOUT! ALONSO ON HIS WAY TO HOME PLATE, THEY’RE WAITING FOR HIM! HE HITS THE PLATE, HE’S FIRST CONGRATULATED BY NIMMO! HUGGED BY LINDOR! THERE ARE A DOZEN METS WAITING FOR HIM OUTSIDE THE DUGOUT! PETE ALONSO KEEPS THIS FAIRY-TALE SEASON GOING WITH THE FAIRY-TALE SWING OF HIS CAREER! THREE TO TWO NEW YORK!
And then, almost immediately, I had a terrifying thought: Who’s going to close?
Fortunately, the Mets weren’t done. After Iglesias grounded out, Winker was hit by another pitch and then stole second, bad back and all. Williams went back to that pattern again against Starling Marte [25]: three changeups, then a four-seamer. Marte spanked the four-seamer over first to bring in Winker, and that was it for Williams: He’d given up four runs, one more than he’d surrendered in the regular season. And an opposite-field homer? No one had ever hit one of those off Williams.
That extra run loomed large as Peterson (there’s your answer) immediately gave up a sharp single to Frelick. He struck out Joey Ortiz [26], but that brought up Brice Turang [27], the speed merchant who’s tortured the Mets for more than a week now.
So of course, because baseball is nothing if not utterly perverse, Turang smacked a grounder right at Lindor, hard enough that not even Turang’s terrifyingly fast wheels could deliver him to first before the ball thudded into Alonso’s mitt for the back end of a game-ending double play.
Amazin’ [28], one might say. Or even Oh My God.
Everything goes by so fast. Blink your eyes and Alonso and Lindor will have become visiting dignitaries, interviewed during sleepy midsummer innings by some future Steve Gelbs. You’ll marvel at the fact that they’ve grown gray and try not to think about your own journey along that road.
But these days will be remembered. Twice in a week, the Mets have delivered games that you’ll see revisited during innumerable rain delays, ones that you’ll find yourself smiling to recall at odd moments years and years from now.
These are the games that transmute heartbreak into giddy triumph, that keep us coming back for all the nights enemy closers don’t crumble and opposing outfielders leap a little higher. When you get one of these, you cradle it and give thanks for it. Because these are the games that keep that stubborn little ember of belief burning, awaiting the joyous ignition that’s the reward of being a fan.