David Lennon: Pete Alonso week was an utter disaster for Mets
Orioles' Pete Alonso rounds the bases after his first-inning home run against the Mets at Citi Field on Wednesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Since the franchise’s birth in 1962, the Mets have been a magnet for worst-case scenarios, which helps explain why Pete Alonso’s homecoming this week conjured up the perfect storm at Citi Field.
It required three different narratives to simultaneously converge on 41 Seaver Way during this third week of September. The first was the Mets’ being a catastrophic disappointment, tumbling from a $380 million preseason World Series contender to the basement of the National League. Next there was Alonso crushing it for the Orioles, en route to another 40-homer, 110-RBI season while playing every day.
And lastly, of course, the intensifying rage directed at president of baseball operations David Stearns, the club architect the fans hold responsible for not only pushing their beloved homegrown star to Baltimore, but demolishing a roster that gave them a playoff chase up through the final day of the previous two seasons.
If any one of those three factors had been different, we don’t get the all-consuming Polar Bear circus that descended on Citi Field this week: the relentless standing ovations, the thunderous “PETE A-LON-SO!” chants followed by the similar chorus of “FIRE STEARNS!”
For Wednesday’s series finale, the Alonso ruckus at Citi was a bit more subdued, the decibel-level somewhat lower. But that didn’t stop Alonso, who thrilled the smaller audience (25,324) by homering in his first at-bat, a 410-foot shot into the leftfield deck off Mets’ emergency starter Xzavion Curry in the Orioles’ 7-1 victory. Alonso went 2-for-12 (4 Ks) in Baltimore’s series sweep with a pair of home runs, plus the hotly-debated curtain call.
“It was a really good three days,” Alonso said afterward.
And one stomach-turning memory for the Mets, thanks to Alonso’s 300th homer, a ninth-inning, tying blast off Kodai Senga Tuesday night that paved the way for the Orioles’ 7-5 victory. Alonso re-emerging from the dugout to acknowledge the crowd’s high-decibel affection — in such a game-tilting circumstance — was a spectacle that no one in the ballpark could really wrap their brain around.
Afterward, Sean Manaea had trouble walking a tightrope between respecting Alonso, his former teammate, and trying to comprehend how the Mets’ own fans could essentially turn against the team.
“It’s crazy to me,” Manaea said.
But this wasn’t merely an outpouring of love for Alonso. It was spiked with anti-Stearns lighter fluid, and thus created a Mets’ bonfire that blazed beyond anyone’s control. Since Alonso arrived in Queens under the ideal conditions, partly due to the Mets’ nearly seven-decade run of bad luck and poor timing, no one could be totally surprised by how everything went down.
“I don’t think [the fans] turned on us,” Juan Soto said before Wednesday night’s loss. “I think they just cheered for him. He did everything for this city, for this organization, and I feel like they appreciated him. I don’t think they turned their back on us.”
As for the Citi crowd’s devotion to Pete — especially for the No. 300 curtain call, which came at the Mets’ expense — Soto brought up the season-long frustration around his team’s performance.
“It’s been a tough year for them this year,” Soto said. “So I think they just saved their power for the best moment. That’s what it looked like. It’s been a rough year for us. They haven’t had too much to cheer about. They finally got something they wanted to have fun with and they just did it.”
Did Soto believe the over-the-top affection for Alonso was tied to the hostility for Stearns?
“I don’t know if they’re angry or not,” he said. “The only way I look at it is they’re just a big fan of Pete. They love him.”
Francisco Lindor was among the friendliest with Alonso — they often were seen postgame going over that night’s at-bats in the Mets clubhouse — and the two were chummy again at first base Tuesday as they waited out a replay review. Both were sitting on 299 home runs, and Lindor could only watch later when Alonso beat him to the career milestone, earning him a momentous curtain call that the Mets’ shortstop won’t be able to match because his No. 300 doesn’t come with all the same degree of emotional baggage attached.
“I thought it was a terrible moment,” Lindor said, smiling. “Tying the game like that in the ninth. But it was the kind of reaction I was expecting. At the wrong time. Like I said the first day, he deserves every ounce of the love that he’s getting.”
Those ounces piled up to become an unbearable weight for the Mets during this O’s series, better known as Pete Week going forward. And it was Alonso’s presence, combined with the Citi crowd’s antics, that blunted any of the previous good vibes from the Mets being five games over .500 (22-17) since the trade deadline. The Polar Bear sucked all the oxygen out of the building, and transformed the Mets into the enemy at their own ballpark, which made for a weird few days in Flushing.
“I think unique is the right word,” interim manager Andy Green said Wednesday afternoon. “It did feel a little bit like a flip to see them embrace Pete at the level that they’ve chosen to, which is totally understandable. I think we move forward with a great deal of confidence [that] if we play winning baseball, and give the fans something special to believe in, they’ll be right back in our corner cheering us every single day.”
No doubt. Just as long as Alonso is on his way back to Baltimore.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
