Pete Alonso has hit a lot of home runs in his Major League career -- 299 of them, to be exact. Only 170 big leaguers have reached that nice, round number of 300.
And in a bit of baseball poetry that couldn’t be written better for the silver screen, Alonso will have the chance to hit No. 300 back in his old stomping grounds. The slugger and his Orioles begin a three-game series against the Mets at Citi Field on Monday.
A second-round Draft pick of the Mets in 2016 and the franchise leader in home runs with 264 after seven years in Queens, Alonso is nearing the end of his first season in Baltimore after signing a five-year, $155 million contract with the Orioles in the offseason.
Current Mets and former teammates of Alonso’s hope the Citi Field crowd gives the Polar Bear a warm welcome back.
“It better be electric,’’ Mets star Francisco Lindor said, according to the New York Post. Lindor, coincidentally, has also hit 299 homers entering Monday’s series opener. “I hope people go crazy for him. He deserves it.”
Alonso authored more than a few big moments in his Mets career, none bigger than the ninth-inning go-ahead home run that lifted the Mets over the Brewers in the 2024 National League Wild Card Series.
The 31-year-old may need a few more of those moments over the season’s final few weeks. His Orioles are hanging by a thread in the American League playoff chase, as they enter Monday four games back for the third Wild Card.
Alonso put on a Herculean effort in August, hitting nine long balls on a 1.026 OPS, to will the O’s back into the postseason conversation. After a slight cold spell at the turn of the calendar, he hit career homer No. 299 on Saturday and drove in RBI No. 100 for the season on Sunday, his fourth time reaching the mark in the past five years.
He reacted to those accomplishments in typical Alonso fashion.
"I mean, yeah, great, awesome. But, today, I got my 100th RBI. Whoop-de-do. Didn’t win the game,” he said, according to the Baltimore Banner. “I play to win."
The Mets have certainly missed both that mentality from Alonso and his stalwart production at first base. New York has had a disappointing year, sitting with a 69-80 record despite investing heavily over the offseason with additions like Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta, the latter of whom the Mets dealt to the Rays at the Trade Deadline.
The Mets have played much better of late, committing to a youth movement behind Nolan McLean, Carson Benge, A.J. Ewing and others. But first base has continued to be an Alonso-sized hole in the lineup. Mets first basemen this year have tallied a .685 OPS, fourth-worst across MLB.
Alonso once thought his career would continue with the Mets after opting out of the final year of his previous contract last year. But free agency led him to the Orioles, with whom he “fit perfectly.” He heard from former teammates and coaches after the move but did not have final conversations with Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns or owner Steve Cohen.
“Things were progressing in a way with Baltimore and they were just like, ‘OK, all right,’” Alonso said in May. “When you’re going through free agency and things are coming across, when things are so good, you don’t want to mess up the golden egg so to speak. I just wanted to nurture that flowering relationship and be able to come [to Baltimore].”
Though not at Citi Field, Alonso has already been back to New York this season. He homered on his first swing in a four-game series against the Yankees in May.
If he does so again this time around, he’ll be making history, in a place where he probably envisioned himself doing so countless times. But he’ll be wearing a different uniform.