Pete Alonso's indispensable qualities: Homers and heart
New York Mets’ Pete Alonso is interviewed after his walk-off three-run home run against the Texas Rangers in the 10th inning at Citi Field on Sept. 14, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
If the Mets go on to make the playoffs and somehow have a postseason run that equals or surpasses last year’s, Sunday’s walk-off home run by Pete Alonso is going to be remembered for a long while.
Alonso’s three-run homer in the 10th inning gave the Mets a 5-2 win over Texas and snapped a horribly timed eight-game losing streak.
It also gave the Mets and their oft-tortured fan base a chance to breathe on Monday’s off day. To stop for a moment fearing another collapse like the one from 2007 and to consider that there might be some magic left in this maddeningly inconsistent team after all.
It also led to this thought: How ridiculous is it that Pete Alonso was almost not a Met this season?
Pete Alonso in a Toronto Blue Jays or Seattle Mariners uniform or any other uniform other than a Mets one would have been a baseball abomination. But, since the Mets dragged out Alonso’s contract negotiations until he re-signed just before spring training, it was a very real possibility for 2025.
What a shame that would have been. For the Mets, for Alonso, and most of all for Mets fans.
Alonso is a homegrown Met. He bleeds orange and blue (or whatever color the Mets’ uniform happens to be on a given day). He loves playing in Flushing. Always has, always will.
And you know what else? He’s a pretty darn good player. Spare us the charts and graphs showing how 30-year-old first basemen don’t age well (who of us does?). Spare us the (correct) observation that Alonso is a subpar defensive player.
Sometimes front offices have to put down their slide rules and allow emotion to enter the discussion. Pete Alonso is all about emotion, like the unbridled kind when he took a joyous trip around the bases on Sunday that just may have saved the Mets' season.
“I'm really, really stoked I was able to step up and help the team there,” Alonso said. “Obviously, this is a really important one for us, especially coming down the stretch.”
The home run was Alonso’s 34th of the season. Going into Monday, that was fifth in the National League and tied for ninth in the majors. It gave him 117 RBIs, which is second in MLB to Kyle Schwarber’s 127.
He’s sixth overall in slugging percentage at .510. Slugging is why you pay Alonso, and he crushed one when the Mets needed him most. When all they needed to win the game was a single.
But as Alonso said after the game, “Every walk-off homer is sick.” He should know: With five, he has the most in Mets history.
There isn’t a Mets fan around who didn’t flash back to Alonso’s home run off Devin Williams in Milwaukee in Game 3 of last year’s Wild Card round. Different situation, different ballpark, but a similar spot over the rightfield fence.
After the game, SNY’s Michelle Margaux asked manager Carlos Mendoza what it is about Alonso that allows him to come up big in those situations.
“His ability to stay locked in,” Mendoza said. “His ability to slow the game down and don't get too big. He knows that he’s powerful and all he's got to do is just punch it pretty much in those situations and the ball is going to go. It was pretty impressive. But that's what makes him who he is. He's an elite hitter and a clutch hitter. When you look up all his numbers, man, he's special.”
With the ghost runner on second, the Rangers had started the inning by intentionally walking Juan Soto.
“I kind of knew it,” Alonso said. “As he was walking to the plate, I was kind of shadowing him. I'm like, ‘All right, just put him on and, yeah, ready for my chance.’ ”
Alonso will get more chances during the final two weeks as the Mets try to hold off the less-than-impressive trio of San Francisco, Arizona and Cincinnati for the NL’s final wild-card spot. It’s hard to imagine the Mets not beating out those teams. It would be an outrage if they don’t.
Whenever the Mets season ends, the team and Alonso will have to negotiate a new contract. Alonso has an opt-out as part of the two-year, $54 million deal he signed on Feb. 12. He is expected to opt out and hit the open market again as a slugging first baseman who will turn 31 on Dec. 7 and isn’t getting any younger, faster or more athletic.
All he does is hit big home runs and drive in big runs, all with as big a heart as any player to come around these parts in decades. All he does is love being a Met. For Pete’s sake, that should count for something around here.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
