Baseball does not usually script things this well. Pete Alonso hit his 300th career home run in the ninth inning at Citi Field, off the Mets, in front of the fans who watched him hit the first 264.
The Orioles were two outs from losing when Alonso caught a Kodai Senga pitch and sent it 414 feet to tie the game at 3. Baltimore went on to win 7-5 in 11 innings, with Coby Mayo delivering an inside-the-park homer to finish it off.
Alonso became the 171st player in major league history to reach 300 home runs. He also became just the third player ever to hit his 300th against a team he played at least 1,000 games for.
The Curtain Call Says It All
What happened after the ball landed is the part people will remember. Mets fans chanted Alonso’s name until he came out of the Baltimore dugout for a curtain call. He got it in an opposing uniform, in a game his team was trying to win against theirs.
Then the chants turned. “Fire Stearns” started rolling through Citi Field, aimed squarely at Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, the man who let Alonso walk to Baltimore on a five-year, $155 million deal last December.
That is a fan base delivering a verdict in real time. They love the guy. They think the front office blew it. Both things got expressed inside of two minutes.
How He Got Here
Alonso had been stuck on 299 through the first two games of this series, hitless in his first seven plate appearances. Monday night was the worst of it: Mets starter Jonah Tong walked him on a full count in the third inning and the home crowd booed its own pitcher for not giving Alonso something to hit.
That is an absurd thing to have happen. Mets fans, watching a one-run game their team eventually won, booed their own starter for not grooving a meatball to the opposing cleanup hitter. Tong laughed it off, which was the correct response.
Tuesday, Senga gave him one. Alonso did not miss.
The Bigger Point
Three hundred home runs is a real number. It is not Cooperstown by itself, but it puts Alonso in a small group and he is nowhere near done. He has been one of the most consistent power producers in baseball since the day he arrived, and the Orioles paid him like a middle-of-the-order anchor because that is exactly what he has been.
The Mets, meanwhile, get to watch the milestone happen in their building, at their expense, while their own fans serenade the guy they let leave. Stearns made a defensible baseball decision on paper. Nights like this are what that decision costs in a market that does not do “defensible.”
Baltimore is still fighting for a wild card spot with two weeks left, and Alonso’s bat is a large reason they are in the conversation. He has three more games in New York this season. The Mets should probably just pitch around him.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.