Pete Alonso Cannot Deliver For His Former Fans But Orioles Beat Mets Anyway

Nearly 36,000 showed up at Citi Field on a Monday night in mid-September with a chill starting to pierce the air to salute former Met slugger Pete Alonso, and the other players on two pathetically disappointing teams on this diamond felt largely inconsequential.

The Mets have no chance to make the playoffs in the tough National League and the Orioles are clinging to theoretical, mathematical hopes but only playing inspired baseball for about two decent stretches all season. This game, and whatever it will mean in the final standings, was a mere subplot and backdrop to whatever Alonso would do when he stepped up to home plate chasing career homer 300.

And, in something that felt entirely on brand for this season, for both of these teams actually, it was what happened right after Alonso’s final at bat that settled this game. With everyone who bothered to show up for this sideshow embracing any and everything Alonso did before, during and after this game, showering the franchise’s all-time homer leader with love, the Polar Bear could only serve up impressive foul ball blasts that hinted at what could have been.

And after Alonso struck out swinging in the 8th, Gunnar Henderson, amid his season of doom, hit a solo homer that ended up the difference in a 2-1, Orioles win. It moves Baltimore a little closer to a Wild Card flirtation, but is really just playing out the string. The rest of this series will remain about whatever Alonso can do to show up a billionaire who Mets fans believe never should have let this first baseman walk. All the while the O’s billionaire boss better hope this contract ages well, given how far from this ballclub is from any real contention.

“That was awesome,” Henderson said of the reception for Alonso on the MASN postgame show. “Pete deserves it. He put his heart and soul out there for this team for many years.”

Runs Hard To Come By

The Orioles remain hard pressed to score with any regularity.

They did get an early double down the line from fallen-prospect Heston Kjerstad, quite a rarity, to drive in the first run of the game. Jackson Holliday, speaking of fallen prospects, broke out of an 0-for-15 funk (he still looks pretty lost) and, on the bright side, Coby Mayo reached safely for the 18th straight game.

Yet another Orioles starter was running on fumes. Brandon Young is in unchartered territory pitching this many innings, and he battled and ducked and dived to get through five, giving up just a solo homer to AJ Ewing. Young lacked command and loaded the bases, but found a way to get out of it.

Young gutted through 106 pitches to get 15 outs – maybe the manager was asleep again, as Craig Albernaz is truly as pathetic a skipper as you will ever find and seems hellbent on one of these starters breaking down before this ugly slog of a season finally ends. This kid walked five and could have benefitted from an earlier hook.

The bullpen eventually took over and Josh Walker, a former Met delivered his 17th straight scoreless appearance and Rico Garcia, yet another former Met, picked up the save. But that's not why they showed up in droves. This series is about Alonso, and not much else.

This Orioles season is down to what lengths feckless baseball boss Mike Elias will go to in hopes of clinging to power while tossing underlings aside. With any luck Alonso will outlast him in Baltimore but with these owners take nothing for granted.

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